date
2025
client
The One Group
There are many factors that contribute to a website’s accessibility, and continual ongoing testing and maintenance is essential for a website to retain a high level of compliance. We have a process for testing and reporting accessibility which involves both automated testing, and human checks with our expert team. It is essential for test to be checked by the human eye as there can be a level of ambiguity through the use of language and imagery, which must be judged in context.
Below are some key highlights to the ongoing accessibility testing and changes carried out to the Benihana USA website.
Website accessibility is an ongoing effort, as seasonal content changes take an effect on over all website accessibility score. With an average accessibility score of 28% the site was very limiting to users with specific accessibility device settings, and so was subject to frequent legal action. Our extensive website accessibility work on the Benihana website has driven up the accessibility score to 99% across the tested pages and components, reducing the risk of action being taken against the website.
Using video is a very powerful way to communicate the Benihana brand, with chefs at Tepan tables with family favourite tricks including juggling knives, igniting fireballs and sending shrimp flying – but the added drama this brings to a digital experience can contravene a number of the WCAG guidelines with too much fast moving and flashing imagery which causes harm to some. We ensure this content is pause or swapped out given specific device setting is essential, to inclusively meet the needs of all.
Restaurant sites in general are very visual, beautiful imagery of food and drink, and exciting interiors do a lot to sell a dining experience. Visitors to a website who are unable to rely on visuals so much are entitled to a comparative user experience, or the website falls foul of various WCAG guide lines, and is judged to be a non compliant website. The solution to this is use descriptive, contextual alt text. We identified and replaced ineffective alt text such as Alt Text = “A Chef” with Alt Text = “A Benihana chef produces the infamous fireball from the Onion Volcano”, greatly increasing how visual information is accurately conveyed to those using screen readers.
Improving your website accessibility increases the range of visitors you can generate to your website, and the conversions to reservations you can achieve. It is fair to all, and the right thing to do, yet to also increases your conversion rate and revenue into your restaurant.