- If the objective is guaranteed WCAG conformance
- Practitioner and community commentary frequently states that overlays alone do not ensure compliance and can increase exposure if used in place of remediation.
- If a significant portion of the user base relies on assistive technologies and any risk of UX degradation is unacceptable
- Some users and accessibility practitioners report that overlays can interfere with assistive-technology workflows.
- If the organization requires SDLC-integrated accessibility engineering tooling
- Developer-centric alternatives (Deque axe toolchain, governance platforms) may be more suitable for continuous integration, automated testing in CI/CD, and issue ticketing.
- If the primary procurement goal is legal immunity or sole reliance on vendor litigation support
- The presence of overlays has been discussed in litigation and community criticism; overlay deployment alone should not be treated as equivalent to comprehensive remediation or legal protection.
- Structural limitation of overlays (recurring external criticism)
- Overlays generally cannot reliably address the root causes of many WCAG success criteria; manual testing and code remediation remain necessary for comprehensive conformance.
- Legal and reputational risk
- Public commentary and some litigation discuss the use of overlays in the context of lawsuits and regulatory scrutiny. Procurement teams should consider legal counsel input when evaluating risk mitigation claims.
- Documentation gaps for enterprise buyers
- Publicly accessible materials did not clearly confirm SOC 2, detailed SSO/SCIM support, data residency options, or penetration testing posture. Buyers should request these items during procurement.