Quick summary
Made by We is a design agency focused on nonprofits and mission-driven organizations. Their accessibility audits were time-consuming, inconsistent, and difficult to scale across client projects. Silktide changed that by automating their reporting, improving consistency, and freeing up time to focus on what really matters: interpreting results and making impactful improvements.
About Made by We
Made by We partners with nonprofits and social enterprises to create brands and websites that grow with them. Founded by Liz Rose Chmela, they work with clients who’ve outgrown basic website solutions and need more sophisticated, technically involved approaches. The team fills design and development gaps for organizations that don’t have these resources in-house, and they’ve made accessibility advocacy a core part of their process.
The Challenge
Before Silktide, Made by We didn’t have a consistent or scalable process for checking accessibility. Audits were handled manually using tools like Lighthouse, and often only happened when a specific issue came up. Every site had its own setup, and each audit became a custom job.
“It was always a time-consuming task. And as a small team, it really wasn’t something that we could be repeating on a regular basis behind the scenes just to monitor in the background.”
Without a centralized approach, it was difficult to track progress over time or maintain consistent standards across client projects. The team wanted to improve accessibility across the board, but doing that manually wasn’t sustainable.
They needed something faster, easier to maintain, and flexible enough to support different websites and workflows, without burning through limited resources.
The Solution
Made by We evaluated several accessibility tools but chose Silktide for its intuitive interface and comprehensive reporting capabilities. Liz Rose described Silktide as “plug and play” – intuitive enough to start using immediately, even without prior experience using the platform.
The onboarding videos in the Silktide Academy were particularly helpful, giving the team a solid foundation to build on. Within three months, Liz Rose felt comfortable using the platform regularly, though she’s still discovering new features as her needs evolve.
Now instead of spending hours manually building reports, the team can instantly access detailed accessibility data for any site they’re working on. They use Silktide both for ongoing monitoring and during the development process, catching issues before sites even launch.
The Outcome
The shift from manual to automated reporting has been transformative. Made by We can now track accessibility improvements over time and has measurably increased the overall accessibility scores of the sites they maintain.
But the real win is how it’s changed their workflow. The time they used to spend preparing reports is now spent interpreting data and making actual improvements. They can test changes quickly during development and respond “in a nimble manner” to address issues before they become problems.
The tool has also provided something unexpected: validation. “Having a tool like Silktide gives you some objective metrics to say, no, we did do that. We did make improvements. We made progress on something that can oftentimes feel intangible or unclear as to whether you’re making progress.”
What’s Next?
Made by We has successfully integrated Silktide into their internal processes. The team continues to advocate for accessibility as a core part of good design, using the objective data from Silktide to make their case stronger.