evidoria

← Back to browse

Good practice Imported

Access Israel — Disability-Led Mystery-Shopper Accessibility Audits

Israel · Tel Aviv · See the Israel profile · See the Tel Aviv profile

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 24% 92/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Israeli NGO Access Israel, founded 1999, sends trained teams of testers with disabilities as covert 'mystery shoppers' to audit businesses' physical and digital accessibility — over 300 paid assessments completed by 2021 — and trains municipal and business staff.

300+ assessments
Paid mystery-shopper assessments completed (by 2021)
200–550 EUR per audit
Assessment fee range (as of 2021)
1.6 million (~18%)
Population living with a disability in Israel (current)
Access Israel — Disability-Led Mystery-Shopper Accessibility Audits

Details

Maturity
Established
Promoter
Access Israel (Negishut Israel)
Period
1999–present (testing programme since 2018)
Keywords
disability inclusion, accessibility auditing, staff training, digital & physical accessibility

Context

Access Israel was established in 1999 as the first Israeli non-profit organisation dedicated to accessibility and inclusion, working in a country where an estimated 1.6 million people — about 18% of the population — live with a disability.

Activities

Since around 2018 the organisation has run a mystery-shopper accessibility testing programme: teams typically include a tester who is blind, one with a hearing disability, one who uses a wheelchair and one with a non-visible disability, who covertly assess a business or public service's physical and digital accessibility. It also runs an Accessibility Training Center that trains municipal and business staff to deliver accessible face-to-face, phone, internet and event services.

Results

By 2021 the programme had completed more than 300 paid assessments, priced between €200 and €550 depending on scope, with many client organisations repeating the assessment annually or twice a year to track progress.

Conclusions

The fee-based assessment model may put repeated testing out of reach for smaller businesses, and the 300-plus assessment count is reported by Access Israel itself; external corroboration comes from third-party award/registry listings (Zero Project, WEF) rather than an independent audit of that figure.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Low (< €50k) — Fee-based service model, charging €200–550 per paid assessment, with disability-led tester teams and a separate Accessibility Training Center.
Time to results
Long (> 3 years) — Organisation founded 1999; the mystery-shopper testing programme itself has run since around 2018, with over 300 assessments by 2021.
Staffing & skills
Mixed-disability tester teams (a blind tester, a tester with a hearing disability, a wheelchair user, and a tester with a non-visible disability), Accessibility Training Center staff training municipal and business employees

Conditions for success

  • Disability-led testing methodology drawing on testers' own lived experience
  • A fee-based (€200–550 per audit) revenue model supporting organisational sustainability since 1999
  • Repeat client relationships (annual or twice-yearly reassessment) to track progress over time

Common failure modes

  • The fee-based model may put repeated testing out of reach for smaller businesses

Where it fits

Governance type
NGO-led, market-based service
Scale
national (Israel)
Income level
high-income

Commonly funded by

Own resources / municipal budget

Indicative funding routes for practices of this type — always check each programme's current calls and eligibility rules.

Do you run this practice? Claim it — verified implementers get a public contact pathway and can propose corrections.

Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

Attachments

Similar practices you may find useful