Build a Simple Case for Accessibility with These 5 Benefits
While there are many reasons to make a product accessible, the most important is simply because it’s the right thing to do. But you may have a client, team, or boss who doesn’t see the value. It’s absurd that we even have to sell accessibility, but often we do. If this is your world, I got you (complete with resources, below).
Here are five key reasons why accessibility is important (beyond ethical responsibility):
- Inclusivity
- Broader audience
- Enhanced usability
- Positive brand image
- Legal compliance
Let’s talk a little about each of these.
Inclusivity
Accessibility and inclusivity are intersectional. While they have their own focus, they overlap as interdependent systems of discrimination and disadvantage. And we need to give everyone equal access to the products we build.
Take for example, the case of touchless soap dispensers. They’re designed to reduce cross-contamination and to remove the physical necessity of operating pumps. But these systems have been designed, built, and tested primarily by white people. People of color have posted many videos demonstrating how their skin tone doesn’t trigger the sensors. The result is exclusive accessibility. If Black people can’t use them, they’re not accessible or inclusive.
Broader audience
If our products are inaccessible to people with disabilities, we’re excluding a large segment of our audience. When they are accessible, they expand our audience. Most notably (but not limited) to people who have disabilities. We can invite everyone to the table if they can all be seated.
The Pew Research Center published a report in 2011 about this. They cited that (at the time) 81% of American adults used the internet, while only 54% of those with disabilities. If the internet was more accessible, it would be used more often by more people living with disabilities.
Enhanced usability
When people talk about accessibility, the first thing that usually comes to mind is disabilities. Many of which are considered “hidden disabilities,” such as neurodivergence and low-literacy. But everyone benefits from accessible products, not just people with disabilities. In most cases accessibility improves usability, which is beneficial for everyone.
Accessibility considerations in the realm of WCAG or ADA compliance are focused on disabilities. But consider something like the size of a click target. There are WCAG compliance recommendations for this. In the specification they note the intent as a matter of disability accommodations, noting:
Users with dexterity limitations and those who have difficulty with fine motor movement find it difficult to accurately activate small targets when there are other targets that are too close.
But if, like me, you’re fully-abled, you’ve been frustrated more than once by tiny click targets on both mobile phones and desktop browsers. Tap, tap, tap…and the cookie modal won’t close. That’s a usability issue. The accessibility of click-target size helps people with disabilities and everyone else.
Positive brand image
Reputation and legacies are important for brands. Prioritizing accessibility demonstrates social responsibility and ethical commitment. That’s good for any brand. If it didn’t matter, companies wouldn’t be spending staggering amounts of money on CSR initiatives and then telling people about it.
Legal compliance
Legal compliance is an easy sell. No company wants to get sued. The thing is, lots of decision makers don’t realize it’s happening. There are a number of laws in many countries that require accessibility compliance. And a number of companies have already been slammed by the courts for non-compliance.
Between 2017–2022, over 14,000 cases were filed in federal court for website non-compliance. Over 3,200 of those in 2022 alone. And those numbers are rising each year. Some high-profile cases include Winn-Dixie, Domino’s Pizza, Rite Aid, and even Beyonce. No one is immune.
If we can’t sell the value of accessibility on anything else, we can always call in the ringer of litigation.
Resources
I have a sizable archive of accessibility resources. These are some of my favorites:
- Neurodiversity Design System. A coherent set of standards and principles that combine neurodiversity and user experience design for learning management systems to support success and achievement for everyone.
- Empathy prompts. A series of prompts that you can randomly refresh. Each one showcases an experience that warrants accommodations for accessibility. The idea is to create empathy for people who need our consideration when designing products.
- A11y Project WCAG compliance checklist. A checklist that simplifies the robust WCAG compliance declarations. It’s kind of like CliffsNotes for WCAG.
- Accessible numbers. Pretty much everything you need to know about accessibility accommodations for using numerical data in tables, UIs, etc.
- Apple VoiceOver command charts. Apple’s macOS has a built-in screen reader called VoiceOver. Anyone can turn it on/off and use it to read websites and software UIs. This is a list of all of the commands that can be used to navigate content. If you want to truly understand what it’s like to use a screen reader to navigate a website, give it a try. Then you’ll understand why it’s so important to make respective accommodations.
- Ethical design guide. Tech is always political. The way data is collected and handled is often biased, and many products are neither accessible nor inclusive. Ethical Design Guide is made to share resources on how to create ethical products that don’t cause harm.
- Psychology of design. Every time people interact with a product they filter information, seek its meaning, act with the parameter of time, and store bits in their memory. To improve that experience, you need to understand the biases and heuristics affecting those four decision-cycle steps. This guide is a list of cognitive biases and design principles for each category.
- Cognitive accessibility guidelines. The W3C guidelines for cognitive accessibility. This is a formal document that’s both dry and verbose. But it’s comprehensive and serves every team who is designing/building for cognitive accessibility.
- IBM Able. Tools and resources from IBM, including toolkits, requirements, and more.
- My talk on exclusivity and biases in design. I’ve given a talk on the intersectionality of accessibility and inclusivity, underscoring the magnitude of design’s role in it. I include case studies on some historical/modern design decisions that have had enormous (often fatal) impacts on people.
For me, accessibility and inclusivity are always front of mind when I’m designing and building digital products. If you’re reading this, it probably is for you as well. For so many years the battle for accessibility seemed hopeless. Over time it got easier, but it’s still a battle. Keep fighting the good fight, because we gotta look out for each other.
#Accessibility #A11y #Usability #Design #Inclusivity #Neurodivergence
Like this? Find out when I publish new work.
