Independence
Usability.ie is an independent UX research, testing and accessibility-audit practice. We do not do design or development work, and we do not have a standing arrangement with any implementation agency. If a client asks for a recommendation, we point them toward whoever fits the project — we don't have a default answer, and we don't earn anything from the referral either way.
What we accept money from
- Direct client engagements — audits, testing, research, CRO retainers. This is our entire revenue.
What we don't accept money from
- Software vendors. No paid placements, no affiliate links, no sponsored mentions of testing platforms, accessibility tools, A/B-test tools, analytics packages, or anything else.
- Other agencies. No white-label work. No sub-contracted reports under a third party's name.
- Auditors' kickbacks. Some audit firms operate referral arrangements with developers who do remediation. We do not. Recommendations in audit reports are not steered by a separate revenue stream.
How we handle conflict of interest
Because we don't implement our own findings, we don't have a direct financial stake in how big or small the resulting fix turns out to be. We manage the residual risk of that dynamic the same way other advisory-only consultancies do:
- Audit findings are written without reference to who would implement them. Severity scoring is based on user impact, not implementation cost.
- Where a client has an existing developer relationship that's working, we recommend keeping it.
- We don't push clients toward a particular implementation partner, and we don't take referral fees for the ones we do mention.
- If a finding is most appropriately addressed by a specialist outside our practice (e.g. a major back-end refactor), we say so.
Standards we cite
- WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) — the W3C standard used as an agreed technical evaluation baseline. The version, level and tested scope are stated for each engagement; legal applicability is a separate decision.
- Nielsen Norman Group's 10 Usability Heuristics for heuristic audits.
- European Accessibility Act (EU Directive 2019/882) and the Irish transposition (European Union (Accessibility Requirements of Products and Services) Regulations 2023).
- ICE (Impact / Confidence / Ease) prioritisation for CRO hypothesis ranking.
Corrections
Spot a factual error in an article or report? Email hello@usability.ie with "Correction:" in the subject. We update affected pages within seven days; the article-meta date will reflect the change.
Contact
Editorial questions, methodology questions, complaints: hello@usability.ie or via the contact form.