A while ago I was wondering why we developers are so rubbish at accessibility. This article will try to convince you to do something about it!
Empathy towards end users, albeit key, is not the only reason you’d want to bake accessibility into your work.
It’s good for business!
The World Health Organisation estimates that around 16% of the world population experiences a significant disability today. It is therefore very likely that a sizeable portion of your current customer base will have an impairment or long-term health condition.
It makes sense to provide all users with as frictionless an experience as possible, right?
Afterall, you may already be unknowingly loosing customers! As the latest WebAIM screen reader users survey reports, 2 in 3 surveyed people (not very often or never) report encountered barriers to website owners.
If you are still not convinced that it makes economic sense to make your work accessible, I’d recommend a great talk from WordCamp London 2017: “A11y and how to sell it to a client”, by Mik Scarlet.
It’s also the law
Yes, it’s a carrot and stick situation.
The Equality Act 2010 is long standing legislation in the UK and does not indicate specific digital accessibility standards. The majority of government websites however, aim to be compliant with WCAG 2.1, level AA.
The European Accessibility Act (EAA) will become law in all EU countries on the 28th June 2025. It will affect any ecommerce site and most businesses offering services to EU countries. Businesses with less than 10 staff or a turnover of less than 2 million euros are excempt.
Regarding digital accessibility, the expectation is that the EAA will require a standard similar to WCAG 2.2, level AA.
Individual countries will be able to fine EAA breaches independently from each other, so a single breach may receive penalties from multiple countries.
When to “do accessibility”
One thing is clear:
The accessibility of a digital product is a team effort.
It is not just up to testers and developers, all teams have a role to play in making a service accessible to all customers.
In an ideal world, accessibility would be part of a project from the start and all stakeholders would have it in mind at all times. Afterall, it is more efficient to do things properly the first time around than having to fix bugs later!
But we all know reality is always more complicated. So, very often, the best we can do is endeavour to make all new work accessible and improve the rest gradually whenever possible.
So how do we go about it? Watch out for the next post for quick tips on how get started! 😉