Large portals, news sites, massive e-commerce sites, and content behemoths often look like standard websites at first glance—but they actually present unique and complex accessibility challenges.
What defines a portal is that users have countless options, and under a single roof live entire sub-sites, each with its own lifecycle, distinct interface, unique content, and separate user experience.
Ynet, for example, is not just a news site, but also a home for lifestyle articles, calculators, a gaming zone, tech sections—each functioning as its own independent site.
So how do you tackle it?
Hundreds of different scenarios within one portal site—where do you even start?
For instance, on complex portals, searching for a single article might yield dozens of results, accompanied by dozens of filters. So your accessibility approach must differ from the usual: don't run tests across the entire site all at once, but first organize your strategy.
The first step we take is mapping user scenarios: understanding how visitors behave, which actions they perform most frequently, and what common use patterns exist on the portal. You can't make everything accessible at once simply because it's impossible. You need to start from the heart of the site—the places where users spend the most time.
Make accessible what delivers the highest value first
Once we identify the core scenarios, we move to the next phase: we assess which areas of the site share common characteristics—and focus on those.
For example, on Ynet it's reasonable to assume that regular articles account for a large percentage of total site content. If we make the article template accessible, we'll achieve immediate impact on the portal's overall accessibility.
By contrast, making a gaming area or complex calculator accessible might take many times longer and affect a much smaller percentage of users. It's all a matter of prioritization.
This is how you decide what to make accessible first—based on usage volume, technical complexity, and real-world impact.
Consider training your portal's internal team
Unlike a small site that updates infrequently, portals change constantly—especially news sites. A news site might see dozens of updates a day—whether it's breaking news, a new article, or an updated headline. In this scenario, accessibility can't remain only an external effort.
This is where you should think differently: train your site's development team to understand how to implement accessibility as part of their normal workflow. In the short term, training costs more, but long term—it's a worthwhile investment, and often essential.
Everything becomes in-house—and the site remains accessible across all future development.
What about content uploaded by freelancers or external contributors?
Another challenge specific to large portals is that some content is written and uploaded by freelancers rather than permanent in-house staff. Every opinion piece, commentary article, or even recipe can be authored by external writers. This commonly happens, for example, on academic institution websites where faculty uploads content to the site.
In such cases, monitoring the accessibility level of each article is difficult. On one hand, the author produces content associated with the site. On the other, you don't have complete control.
The solution:
First, ensure the system itself enables accessible uploads—for example, functionality to add image descriptions (alt text).
Second, it's worth training the authors themselves, even if they're freelancers, to understand how to upload accessible content. At minimum, grasp the basics.
Additionally: it's important to note in your accessibility statement that the site includes content uploaded by third parties, which may not be under your full control. This protects the site and also raises awareness.
In summary
Making large portals accessible requires a different mindset—not by technical checklist, but by user scenarios, usage volume, and ongoing maintenance. When a site is complex and dynamic, the choice of what to make accessible first, how to divide the work, and how to engage your internal team is what makes the difference.
Ultimately, it's not just about regulatory compliance: it's about creating an accessible, equitable, and smart user experience—even in the most complex system out there.
And we have the experience in making portals accessible. So for any question and consultation, we at USER A are happy to help you with our expert team.