LAKEWOOD, Ohio -- Created roughly a decade ago, Lakewood-based Equidox focuses on increasing PDF accessibility to those with disabilities, including people who are blind or have sight issues.
“Equidox is a document conversion software tool that converts inaccessible PDFs into accessible PDFs for people with disabilities,” Equidox Sales Director Pat Needles said.
“A lot of organizations will put PDFs on their website for public consumption. If the PDF is not produced in a fashion that is accessible -- meaning that it’s not read in the right order -- the document becomes useless for a screen reader. They get no content out of it.”
By advocating for and enhancing PDF accessibility, Equidox helps organizations become fully compliant with Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requirements while ensuring equal and fair access to important documents.
“Digital accessibility is part of the ADA, just like parking, elevators and wheelchair ramps,” Needles said.
“Digital accessibility is a law where organizations need to make their content accessible for people with disabilities, which is about 20-plus percent of the population. You just can’t discriminate against those people.
“So there are a lot of lawsuits annually going on in digital accessibility.”
Digital accessibility lawsuits have increased more than 200 percent since 2017, with more than 4,000 filed in 2021.
“This year there will be around 5,000 lawsuits,” Needles said. “It’s going up every year, because folks are asking organizations to make their content accessible.
“If you were visually impaired, you would not stay on a website that you could not navigate and ultimately buy something. For people with disabilities, they have to have that content available in an accessible format.”
The other aspect of Equidox’s work is that accessibility improves SEO and boosts a client’s reputation.
Its parent company, Onix Networking, was recently acquired by Tailwind Capital, so Equidox is now a standalone operation and the primary tenant of the Bonnie Bell Building in Lakewood.
Looking ahead, Needles said Equidox is developing automated technology using computer vision and machine learning.
“Basically, that makes up artificial intelligence,” Needles said. “We’re automating the process for organizations to make their PDFs accessible.
“For example, I get my bank statement emailed to me once a month in PDF format. We would automate the PDF accessibility portion of that document and make a statement 100 percent accessible for somebody who gets it via an email that they can open and read easily.
“The same is true for credit card statements, utility statements. Anything that’s a repetitive type of document, we automate that process for organizations.”
While Equidox boasts 37 employees nationally, a handful are located in Lakewood, which Needles said acts as a perfect home for the growing company.
“We do work with some very large Cleveland corporations,” Needles said. “We built a great culture here at Equidox.
“Our employees love working for us. We’re a giving outfit. We have a charitable arm that likes to give to the needy in Cleveland, as well as Lakewood. I’d say we’re a very caring company.”
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