 Logo since 2018 | |
| Company type | Private Company |
|---|---|
| Industry | Web Accessibility |
| Headquarters | Herndon, VA |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people |
|
| Website | www |
Deque Systems (/ˈdiːkjuː/ DEE-kew) is a digital accessibility company based in Herndon, Virginia with additional offices in Kavuri Hills Madhapur, Hyderabad India and Utrecht, The Netherlands.
The CEO of Deque Systems is Preety Kumar.[1]
The company was started in 1999 and produces accessibility testing software in addition to offering accessibility consulting services and training.[citation needed]
In June, 2015 Deque open-sourced the accessibility rules engine axe-core.[2]
In May 2020, the WorldSpace brand name was retired and replaced by axe for each of Deque's products.[3]
In September 2020, Deque found that the majority of vote by mail applications were inaccessible, and fixed them for the 2020 Presidential Election.[4][5][6][7]
More than 17,000 attendees joined Deque's digital accessibility conference axe-con in March 2021, making it the largest accessibility conference recorded.[8]
Deque was named a leader in the first-ever Forrester Wave report for Digital Accessibility Platforms, Q4 2023 with the highest overall score.[9]
Deque tools, services and training are used to achieve compliance in support of the W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines,[10] the Americans with Disabilities Act, Section 508 and EN 301 549.[11]
axe is a suite of accessibility testing tools for HTML, Android, and iOS applications. Each product in the axe toolkit is powered by the open source rules engine axe-core.[12][13]
Products within the axe suite include: axe Devtools, axe Monitor and axe Auditor.
Deque University is a collection of online accessibility training courses covering a range of topics from introductory level to expert-level International Association of Accessibility Professionals CPACC.[14]
Amaze is a technology that helps to make websites accessible to people with disabilities without touching the site’s code. Amaze is being used as part of the Department of Veterans' Affairs web accessibility remediation plan.[15] In June 2013, Computerworld honored Deque Systems with the 21st Century Achievement Award for Innovation for their work on the Amaze technology. The Amaze technology represented a new approach to web accessibility software. The traditional way of correcting an inaccessible site was to go back into the source code, reprogram the error, and then test to make sure the bug was fixed. If the website was not scheduled to be revised in the near future, that error (and others) would remain on the site for a lengthy period of time, possibly violating accessibility guidelines. With Amaze overlays, the error can be fixed quickly and cost-effectively. The overlay can also be used as a guide to update the code when the website’s revision is scheduled to take place. It can also be used to remediate third-party web content such as from social media sites.[16]