The business case for web accessibility

We all know that having a strong online presence is crucial for any business. But what's the point of having one if it's not accessible by many people?

Wouldn't you want your business to be approachable and reachable by as many people as possible?

Web accessibility often tends to be labelled as a buzzword or a nice-to-have feature. But it's not. It can act as a powerful business strategy that can unlock numerous benefits for your company, which are sometimes indirectly related to web accessibility.

From expanding your market reach to boosting your brand reputation, the advantages of prioritising web accessibility are both far-reaching and impactful, even from an economical standpoint.

In this article, we'll explore the business case for web accessibility and why it should be a key consideration in your digital strategy. And if you scroll to the bottom, you will find an interactive calculator to give you an approximate of what accessibility can do on your website.

1. Business Impact

a) Expanded market reach

If you start prioritising web accessibility, you can tap into a vast, often underserved market that wants to engage and buy from you. This approach opens doors to approximately 15-20% of the (world) population living with disabilities, which is a huge demographic that will be almost as impactful for your local or national market too.

There is a separate post about accessibility facts that will give you a more detailed look on various numbers that are possible for you when implementing web accessibility.

Like accessing a $13 trillion global market (Opens in a new window) . 👀

b) Enhanced brand reputation

When you make your website accessible, you're not just ticking the legal boxes – you're showing everyone that you care.

This kind of inclusive approach doesn't go unnoticed as people will start seeing your company as one that's got its heart in the right place as well as its eyes on the future. It's natural assume that caring for your audience is a brilliant way to build trust and goodwill, which can do wonders for your brand's image.

One company that does this well is Microsoft. For many years, they incorporated accessible design (Opens in a new window) which allows players with limited mobility to enjoy gaming. The company's decision boosted their image as inclusive innovators, earning global acclaim from gamers, media, and advocates.

c) Competitive advantage

It's disheartening that most of the internet is inaccessible. But since there is a very high likelihood that your competitor is not taking accessibility seriously, you can take advantage of that by using accessibility as a competitive advantage.

According to Deque, inaccessible businesses loses $6.9 billion in potential North American e-commerce revenues (Opens in a new window) and less than 10% of businesses have a targeted plan to access the disability market.

Accessibility can also act as a differentiation in the market, not only from an inclusive branding point of view but also because of a potential of increasing customer loyalty among users with disabilities and their networks

d) Enhanced customer loyalty

Words of mouth is powerful within the disability communities.

When a disabled person finds a site accessible, not only are they more likely to return but there is a high likelihood that they will recommend it to others who are in the same boat as them. This is because it's a rare and valuable find in a largely inaccessible web that they all struggle with, myself included.

There's a strong sense of community among people with disabilities, and sharing these discoveries is a way to support each other and improve their daily online experiences.

And businesses that prioritises accessibility can profit from that because of customer loyalty.

When Paul Smyth, Barclays' Head of Digital Accessibility, was speaking at TechShare Pro 2020 (Opens in a new window) , he said:

"Accessibility programs are the biggest loyalty scheme…we see customers vote with their feet and switch to our bank."

e) Improved conversion rates

It goes without saying that having an easier-to-use, well structured and highly engaging website will lead to higher conversion rates and reduced abandonment rates. This is primarily because frustration decreases.

And when you consider how accessibility impacts the functionality of forms, it can lead to more form submissions, which tends to be another metric that you track (or should be tracking, just in case you are not).

2. User Experience and website performance

a) Improved user experience for all

It's easy assume that making your website accessible means you're helping people with disabilities. But actually, you're making life easier for everyone.

Think about those switching on captions when watching videos so that they don't disturb their fellow bus passengers. Or those wants to choose one of the many coloured themes that suits their needs i.e. late at night in the dark. Or just simply those who wants to navigate across a clear, well-structured site that meets their needs.

Everyone can use those features, and so much more.

b) Easier to consume content

A huge part of accessibility is focusing on clear, concise content that improves overall communication. For example, think of a typical terms and conditions. Most of us glaze our eyes over it because it's (deliberately?) made to be full of legal jargon and unreadable. But some brands go out of their way to make their terms and conditions more user friendly.

Canva is one company that does this. Their 'Terms of Use' (Opens in a new window) may look complex on the face of it. But they have also deliberately added text boxes that contains simpler definitions of each points across the page.

Even making use of alt text for images can improve contextual understanding for all users. On the face of it, it may not sound like it's content related, but of course it is. Images are important part of content

And don't forget, better content quality also means Google will understand your website better.

c) Enhanced mobile experience

Many accessibility features align with mobile best practices. An example would be to ensure that clickable elements have sufficient touch target sizes and spacing, which benefits both users with motor impairments and mobile users trying to navigate with their fingers on small screens.

At the risk of repeating myself, even Google mentions the importance of button size. In their official page on accessible tap targets (Opens in a new window) , Google recommends that touch targets (like buttons and links) should be at least 48 x 48 pixels in size, with adequate spacing between them.

d) Enhanced readability across all platforms and devices

It's very common to see people using stylish fonts either as their main website font or to be "creative" when filling in their social media bios.

But let's face it, they're not creative at all. And the majority of the time, they're not accessible…for everyone, not just those with visual impairments.

Having accessible typography choices often improve readability on all platforms and screen sizes. Which is a good thing, as you would want everyone to have a smooth experience when accessing your content, right?

3. Technical benefits

a) Better Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) performance

Making your website accessible isn't just good for users - it's brilliant for search engines too. There are so many ways web accessibility and SEO correlate with each other.

For example, by tidying up your site's structure, making use of alt texts, using clear, easy-to-understand language and work well on mobile, the likes of Google can better understand what your pages are all about.

Let's be clear: accessibility is not a direct ranking factor. This is something that John Mueller, Google's Senior Search Analyst / Search Relations team lead explained in an interview. However, it is widely known that Google always supports website accessibility in order to make every user experience seamless, regardless of who you are.

And they may look into looking into accessibility more from a user experience and site performance perspective.

b) Improved site performance

Making your website accessibility often leads to cleaner code, which can then lead to faster load times as there are reduced server resources, which can potentially give you savings on hosting while improving site speed.

And we all know that better performance can have a positive impact on SEO and user experience, as well as improving conversion rate and reducing bounce rate.

c) Technological future-proofing

It is not possible to be 100% future-proof, but one huge aspect of web accessibility is the importance of fully utilising semantic HTML (Opens in a new window) , which is not only a fundamental part of the internet but it contains many built-in keyboard accessibility functionality.

For example, using <button> correctly will ensure that it's focusable, you can navigate to it using the tab key, it can be operated using space or return key, screen reader will better understand it's purpose, etc.

On top of that, a well-structured and coded website also makes it easier for voice search and AI-driven interfaces to access your website. Think about all those AI tools that reads out a page to you in an audio format. It's easier for them to do that when your site is accessible.

Screen reader is an obvious reason to make use of web accessibility, but it can prepare you for the growing trend of voice searches and AI-based commands that are dependent on voices.

d) Improved performance in various channels

Think of channels such email marketing, social media, videos on YouTube, podcast: they all have the potential to reach more people effectively.

In email marketing, accessible email design principles often lead to better open and click-through rates.

In social media, accessible content (e.g., image descriptions) can improve engagement.

For video based content, be it on platforms like YouTube or even on social media feeds, captions and transcripts can improve video SEO and engagement. This opens up video content to a broader audience, and not necessarily those who are deaf and hard of hearing, everyone can benefit from captions too.

When creating podcasts, providing transcripts for can improve SEO as well as provide opportunity for deaf and hard of hearing people to access them, though like captions, many people can benefit from transcripts too.

4. Legal and compliance

a) Legal compliance and risk mitigation

Making your website accessible isn't just a nice-to-have; it's becoming a must-do. By getting your digital house in order, you're not only doing the right thing, but you're also protecting your business from legal consequences. You'll be less likely to face those discrimination lawsuits that can cost a pretty penny and tarnish your reputation.

Domino's Pizza has faced this, as the US Supreme Court has handed a victory to a blind man who sued Domino's over their site's lack of accessibility (Opens in a new window) .

Plus, as governments worldwide are putting more emphasis on to the importance of web accessibility, you'll be ahead of the game when new laws come into play.

5. Cost and efficiency

a) Cost savings across board

There are various areas where a business can save money across board. And I'm not just talking about compliance and avoiding legal actions.

If a website is easier to navigate, customer support will not be required as much to deal with the simpler enquiries.

A tidier and well structured code means less maintenance for the developers to deal with, and can also play a part in improving cross-browser compatibility as it ensures consistency when using codes like HTML5, which works in most browsers. This again reduces bugs and site errors, which ultimately save yours and your developers time.

And even more importantly, implementing accessibility as early as possible will be a lot cheaper than doing later down the line. It's one of the many reasons why important to implement accessibility from the start.

b) Increased employee productivity, diversity and retainment

A personal struggle I've had in the past is to watch those (boring!) onboarding videos upon starting a new job…only to find that the audio quality is very poor, which makes it hard to listen, and no captions were available. This then led to more internal issues where there were little thoughts on creating accessible internal systems.

This will ultimately affect your employees productivity but also affects your ability to attract and retain a more diverse and inclusive workforce.

6. Innovation and development

a) Innovation driver

Most people don't realise that accessibility can help spark creativity within your team and the entire business.

Designers and developers have to think outside the box to make things work for everyone, which often leads to brilliant new ideas that end up making the site better, you've guessed it, everyone.

Would you rather have your team thinking outside the box when it comes to finding a solution, or just copy a standard template that everyone else does?

7. Social and corporate responsibility

a) Social impact

I don't have to explain why web accessibility can contributes to digital inclusion and equality. But there are also wider goals that could fall under this topic.

One big one is that accessibility as a whole (not just digital but also physical accessibility i.e. access for wheelchair users) aligns nicely with the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals (Opens in a new window) . This is a blueprint that is designed to:

address the global challenges we face, including those related to poverty, inequality, climate change, environmental degradation, peace and justice. - UN (Opens in a new window)

Web accessibility aligns closely with several UN Sustainable Development Goals, particularly Goal 10 (Reduced Inequalities), Goal 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth) and Goal 4 (Quality Education). By making digital content accessible, you can play a part in:

• reducing inequalities in access to information and services

• provide equal opportunities for education and employment

• enable people with disabilities to participate fully in the digital economy.

However much you do, it shows that you will not just have local impact but also play a part in a global one too.

8. Web Accessibility Impact Calculator

You can use the calculator to give you an idea of how much impact web accessibility can have on your website.

It will provide you insights into the potential traffic and revenue your website could gain by becoming more accessible to disabled people. By using country-specific disability statistics and real-world data, it helps you understand the business opportunities you might be missing.

While making your website accessible can significantly improve user experience and potentially increase revenue, it's important to understand that accessibility alone isn't a magic solution for business challenges.

We do not store nor can view the data that you have input.

Final thoughts

Throughout this article, we've explored how web accessibility is not just a nice-to-have feature, but a crucial business strategy. From expanding market reach and enhancing brand reputation to improving user experience and SEO performance, the benefits to your business are clear. Accessibility drives innovation, ensures legal compliance, and contributes to social responsibility, all while potentially reducing costs in the long run.

I may be biased but this sounds like a good business case to me. If you don't believe, you can also read World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) own thoughts on the business case for accessibility (Opens in a new window) .

Make sure you also read the other post on accessibility facts and statistics to go deeper on the kind of reach that you will have if you take web accessibility seriously. Some stats may surprise you.

Now, it's your turn to take action. What steps can you take today to make your digital presence more accessible? How can you integrate accessibility into your business strategy?

The first step could be to get in touch with us and learn how we can help you.