Seven reasons why you should invest in accessibility in your website
At a high level, accessibility is generally defined as the practice of ensuring that something can be accessed by people with disabilities without them being disadvantaged in any way. Disabilities can both be physical or mental, visible or not visible. Accessibility might relate to a building, a product or a service, but also a website, an application, a web or mobile app or other digital project.
The need for accessibility around websites and digital products is very well-established with a passionate global community of professionals, a number of documented practices, several dedicated applications and tools, and an accepted international standard. Many websites aim and claim to conform to the AA level of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.2) which is generally recognised as the level of accessibility that a site needs to reach.
However, the truth is that many websites are not actually accessible, and accessibility is not often given the prioritisation that it should have. Most sites do not meet the AA-level of the WCAG guidelines.
Sites that are not accessible happen for different reasons including:
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The digital team have not prioritised accessibility and are not actively monitoring for accessibility, sometimes due to a lack of awareness.
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A site was initially accessible with WCAG conformance when first created and launched, but multiple changes added since then are not accessible.
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Content added is not accessible and essential practices like adding alt text to images have not been carried out: this is often the main reason why a website is no longer accessible.
Why you should invest in website accessibility
Not investing in website and digital accessibility is a mistake. Below we outline seven of the key reasons why investing in accessibility makes sense on multiple levels.
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Legal compliance
In the UK you have a legal responsibility to make your website accessible thanks to the 2010 Equality Act which protects against discrimination and means every business’s website should conform to the WCAG 2.2 AA level. There are additional accessibility regulations for public sector organisations covered by the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018. Despite there being a legal obligation, accessibility is still not often adequately prioritised by digital teams.
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Supporting DE&I and company values
Although some very large global and US corporates are retreating back from Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DE&I) programmes due to a shift in the political landscape, many businesses remain fully committed to supporting diversity and inclusion.
Ensuring a website and other digital channels are fully accessible to people with disabilities aligns with DE&I objectives, while one that doesn’t is likely to undermine or contradict them. Generally, from reading any businesses’ stated policies around DE&I as well as more general statements around organisational values, it should follow that a site Is accessible.
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Reputational risk
By not meeting your legal requirements relating to accessibility, on paper you could be risking a targeted or speculative lawsuit which has an obvious reputational risk attached. Although in the UK this is extremely unlikely to happen, there have been high profile case in the US, with one of the most notable involving Domino’s. There can still be a reputational risk if someone points out online that your inaccessible website is technically discriminating against people with disabilities.
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Commercial reasons
According to UK government statistics reported by Scope, 24% of people of working age in the UK are disabled, rising to 45% for those of pension age. Meanwhile 11% of children have some form of disability. This covers all forms of disability.
These figures are much higher than many people realise. While not all disabilities may impact a person’s ability to visit a website, not being accessible means you are still potentially impacting the experience for a very significant proportion of your visitors. In terms of lead generation, spreading awareness, making sales and so on – reducing the number of people who can successfully visit and user your site makes no sense at all from a commercial or business standpoint.
Estimates of the potential annual spending power of the UK’s disabled population – often known as the “purple pound” – are as high as £274 billion each year. There is therefore a very strong commercial reason for making your website accessible.
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It’s good for usability
The changes that you make to improve accessibility on your website are also good for general usability. They will usually benefit all your site visitors. Adding labels on check boxes, making PDF documents accessible with a helpful navigation, making your content more readable, avoiding inaccessible colour contrasts, ensuring videos have captions, avoiding clutter on your page – all these will benefit people without disabilities too. Accessibility is an inherent element of usability.
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It’s good for SEO
SEO can sometimes be a bit of a dark art which also evolves as Google changes its algorithms. However, it’s generally accepted that when you make your site and content accessible it is going to be good for SEO. This is partly due to more attention given to layout, structure, headlines and readability, as well as the use of tags, descriptive links and more.
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Ethical approach
The vast majority of businesses in the UK – and the teams that wok within them – conduct business in an ethical way. Arguably, working towards making a website more accessible to people with disabilities is an ethical approach to managing a website. We know there can be some practical considerations that mean accessibility is not always as straightforward as it should be, but working towards improving accessibility is absolutely the right thing to do.
Accessibility is critical
Accessibility is a no-brainer. It makes sense from a regulatory, commercial, risk and ethical point of view and it should be a priority for your website or digital project. Yet so many websites are not really accessible.
If your site isn’t accessible in the way it should be and you’d like to discuss how you can improve it, then get in touch!
