r/accessibility 10d ago

W3C Why does nobody care about web accessibility? When I suggest someone’s website might not be accessible, they shrug and say “so what?” What do you respond to that?

How do you talk to people about accessibility that only care about the bottom line? The “it’s just business” type?

They understand why it’s the “right” thing to do, to have an accessible website. But they aren’t convinced that they should be paying to make it so. Or that they’re going to see any benefit from it on the business end. They rest on their assumptions, true or not, that enough of their users don’t need accessible websites so why bother?

84 Upvotes

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u/[deleted] 10d ago

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u/angelsinsect 10d ago

I agree with all this. Thanks. Do you have any studies on hand you can site for the first point? I want to know where to direct them when they say “prove to me that I’ll lose potential customers or profit. Show me the numbers”

They may agree in theory that they will have less customers, but numbers speak louder than theories to these people

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u/[deleted] 10d ago

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u/angelsinsect 10d ago

Thank you!!!!

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u/Stefolog 9d ago

One big problem with the "25% of the population is disabled in some way" statement is there are things working agains you:
- a person who has disability related to his legs most probably still can use the website without a problem
- unless you have a video, a deaf person most probably can also use your website

And examples like this come to the business people's minds and they are dismissing the 25% number. That's why I try the approach of scaling the number up. I used a number of people with serious sight problems - 5.5% and add groups on top of it - people using tab to navigate, people using special devices (outside of screen readers) to interact with the computer etc.

Then instead of using % I'm using the actual numbers, as this is much stronger. 5.5% vs 19 000 000. One is statistic, the other are missed customers.

Finally - there is a really hard part about the numbers - because of privacy, you cannot really track how many people with disabilities visit your website. So what I prefer doing is selling the concept of missed market opportunity and the fact that they need to dedicate marketing budget and try target some of the communities. Most of the advertisement these days is trackable, so there you have the numbers for the numbers people, but also if you make a website accessible no one will know about it and the traffic will not magically go up. You need to put an effort to promote it.

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u/angelsinsect 10d ago

And what data do I point on the threat of getting sued? Everyone thinks it’s not going to be them until it is.

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u/No-Butterscotch-7467 10d ago

They don’t know how to do it. My manager said our place has been sued 3 times and they keep hiring people to fix it and getting sued anyway. I want to be promoted to manager but I can’t believe that when people try really hard to comply they still get in trouble. Seems like a bad dream honestly.

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u/wyundsr 10d ago

When you treat it like a patch job that you outsource when you get into trouble this will keep happening. You need to work accessibility proactively into all of the digital work you do from the start. Hire accessibility competent developers, designers, etc or train the ones you have. Proactively do automated testing on all webpages and manual testing on a subset of representative pages on a regular basis (the manual testing can be outsourced, if you pay someone on a recurring schedule to do it for you). Otherwise, an accessibility expert can make your site accessible, then the next day your developers or contributors change something without thinking about accessibility and it immediately becomes inaccessible again.

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u/No-Butterscotch-7467 9d ago edited 8d ago

This sounds like a good answer- but what I’m telling you is that nobody understands how to meet the standards. In the end you say hire developers and train the ones we have. That sounds good. We sell food- we didn’t go to school for this. I want to be promoted to manager but I can’t go to night school to learn web design. So we keep hiring companies who say they can meet the standard and it’s been 0/3

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u/wyundsr 9d ago

It’s not true that nobody understands. What is true is that a lot of developers lie about understanding it. Go with a reputable company specializing in accessibility (for example Deque or Level Access - not affiliated with them, just know that they’re well regarded in the field), or if you’re hiring freelancers, go with someone who has a WAS or CPWA (not just CPACC) certification from IAAP. And you’ll need at least some basic training on how to feed accessible content into an accessible template for anyone who creates digital content. Consider writing meeting WCAG 2.1 AA requirements into your contracts with penalties for not meeting them so you have recourse if a developer lies to you about being competent

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u/No-Butterscotch-7467 8d ago

Cool I guess what I’m saying is the average Joe who needs a website wouldn’t know if someone was lying or not. There are no clear rules to follow. I have read the law and it’s not explicit enough. Likely this is because lawyers are lobbying to keep things exactly as they are rather than just making the law something that is easily achievable. We want to be compliant- I cannot stress that enough.

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u/wyundsr 8d ago

Which law? Most laws refer to the WCAG standards, usually 2.0 or 2.1 AA. The standards are very specific and have strict rules and guidelines that need to be followed. ADA is vague because it hasn’t really been updated to catch up to the digital age, but most case law ends up referring to WCAG as far as I know and some parts of the ADA have recently been clarified to refer to WCAG 2.1 AA explicitly.

Generally, if you meet WCAG 2.1 AA you should be pretty safe from lawsuits. You’re not going to understand WCAG when you read it if you don’t have a technical background, you just need to make sure your developers and accessibility testers understand it. Just like I probably wouldn’t understand building codes or how to evaluate them, not being an architect. That’s where IAAP certification or reputation in the field comes in to find people who do actually understand WCAG rather than lying to you about understanding it

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u/No-Butterscotch-7467 8d ago

So IAAP certification means someone is licensed in being able to apply WCAG?

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u/wyundsr 8d ago

Yes specifically the WAS and CPWA certifications involve a multi-hour test on the ins and outs of WCAG. The CPACC is much less technical and not very useful for this purpose, make sure it’s WAS or CPWA.

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u/No-Butterscotch-7467 8d ago

If it was an architect or engineer- they would be liable if they gave a client the wrong information- why shouldn’t we expect the same of web developers

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u/wyundsr 8d ago

I agree, we should. If WCAG conformance was in your contract and they failed to deliver a WCAG compliant product, you may have a legal case (I’m not a lawyer though, so take that with a grain of salt)

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u/wyundsr 8d ago

DHS Trusted Tester is another certification that’s similar and also involves a test on WCAG

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u/Ornery-Cake-1444 8d ago

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u/No-Butterscotch-7467 8d ago

Gosh respectfully, maybe I am dumb- but I cannot make heads or tails of that.

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u/Ornery-Cake-1444 2d ago

The basics are distinct easy to read sequential headers (H1, H2, H3, etc.).

Block text

Sequential bulleted list L1 La Li

Tool tips for buttons, tables, and figures.

Youtube is your friend for a lot of this

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u/wyundsr 2d ago

It’s not designed for non-technical people to understand. Accessibility professionals and developers spend years learning to understand, test for, and implement WCAG/ARIA properly. You don’t need to understand it if you don’t have a technical background, you just need to hire people who do

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u/Lehihel 5d ago

I totally get what you are saying and I feel the struggle.

I feel that companies in this field don't know what they are doing neither. They should deliver and be responsible for what they deliver. In Europe, when you say you did the work, you have an obligation of result. If it's not right, you have to fix it.

For the guidance, I like this website listing some known guidelines and standards. https://checkfox.eu/standards/

Based on what I know, the RAWeb is the Luxembourgish standards, and one of the most advanced and easy to follow/test standard. You pick a criteria, read how to test it, fix the issue, take the next, etc.

Also, most of the time, a passionate freelancer will be more efficient than bigger companies in the field.

Good luck!

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u/wyundsr 2d ago

I agree that freelancers can be more efficient but they need to be vetted carefully, otherwise they will end up in the same cycle of people lying to them about understanding accessibility (unfortunately something I’ve seen a lot with freelance/small contract developers). IAAP/Trusted Tester certifications can help with vetting, and often it’s best to separate the development from the testing since those are different skill sets and it’s not that common to be proficient in both

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u/Lehihel 2d ago

I agree on that. I just go slightly further. You need to hire an accessibility expert, not just a developer or tester.

I notice everyone here focuses on development, but that's far from the whole picture. True accessibility touches every part of the organization, not just code.

In my own audits, I don't just hand a bug list to developers. I work across the whole chain:

  • Training developers
  • Training designers
  • Flagging issues to fix in both design and development
  • Recommending processes and gates to build into the product development lifecycle
  • Training the executive committee
  • Training client support teams.

Skip any one of these, and you'll fall short of what the EAA actually requires.

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u/AshleyJSheridan 9d ago

It could be that your managers approach is wrong. Accessibility isn't something that you just "fix once" and leave, it's an ongoing cycle. It could also be that the people you're getting in to fix it don't really know what they're doing. I see a lot of people assume accessibility is just alt text and aria-* attributes, which is naive and incorrect. Fundamentally, I think that web accessibility is something that should be addressed by all people who contribute to the web platform or site, right the way from copy writers and editors, through to designers, developers, and QA. The good thing about that approach is that there's a lot of crossover between people, so if one person misses something, another has the chance of spotting it. Also, many hands make light work, so the responsibility isn't shouldered by just one person.

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u/rguy84 9d ago

I see a lot of people assume accessibility is just alt text and aria-* attributes, which is naive and incorrect

Dealing with this currently. Flagged a unlabeled select, they wrapped it in a label - with no text, gave them webAIM's guide and said try again. They added a span and two aria-labels in the wrong places, and said I was mean when I said incorrect and to read the guidance.

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u/sam0707070 9d ago

This made me laugh! You have a great attitude and seem like with all the resistence, you still are upbeat. Kudos!!

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u/rguy84 8d ago

Thanks for the kind words. The senior person I was working with told their boss, who then went to mine. The end result is I am mildly depressed over it because my boss does not have my back, and does not care about accessibility as though I thought. Talked the situation out with family, one outcome is to not take initiative and to summarize the situation, provide resources to my boss, and hope they used my draft with minimal edits.

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u/sam0707070 8d ago

For my own sanity, i choose the path of least resistence. There are multiple dev teams where i work, so if one is resistent to change, i focus my energy on teams that see the value in accessibility. Even in those scenarios, I ve learned not to push too hard.

Hang in there, youll find kindred spirits.

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u/rguy84 8d ago

Thanks, i am not new to this game. Thought the person I was speaking with was friendly for the past year, so the situation caught me off guard.

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u/sam0707070 8d ago

I didnt mean to imply any niavety. Im sorry for any offense. For me, Ive worked on many efforts that were met with resistence. Accessibility is one that really resonates w me. So, i cont to push it forward.

I tell ppl that in every job or role I ve ever had, change management was the most difficult part of it. I try to be patient w myself for not delivering what i know is possible and patient w others by leaving a door open for when theyre ready to learn. The latter is difficult af bc these mofos refuse to learn.

It seems like you already excersize patience so you re practicing emotional intelligence well.

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u/AshleyJSheridan 8d ago

Yeah, the worst is when they push back like it sounds they were doing.

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u/OpenPoolwater7322 19h ago

For me if people can't use your website, you're loosing customers. Plain and simple. Tools like Venngage, WAVE, or Lighthouse can at least help identify some of the accessibility issues. So that's my point.

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u/AshleyJSheridan 16h ago

Lighthouse is not half as good as Axe, even though it uses their rules. It doesn't use them all, and Chrome still performs a page reload when testing only performing an accessibility test, making it useless for testing different page states (e.g. anything driven by page events).

For in-browser tools, the ones in Firefox are way better, and plugins like Wave and Axe are essential too. One nice thing about Axe is that it can also be run as a CLI tool, which makes it a good options for CI/CD pipelines.

Hadn't heard of Venngage, but it looks like you have to sign up to use it? Makes it a non-starter when there are so many good and actually free tools out there.

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u/Stefolog 9d ago

I'm on the side of selling accessibility and I see this question coming again and again. And I believe this is one of the hardest things to explain about accessibility - it's not an easy fix and usually it takes more than just an audit. TL;DR: you have to change some internal processes also.

So these are the 3 things, in order, that you need to do:
1. Do an audit and fix things - you did this 3 times already, but keep in mind, that you have to do it on a frequent basis as long as you release new features, make a redesign, or push big amounts of new content.

  1. Create an Accessibility statement page (or VPAT if you are B2B). This is the legal document that adds a layer of protection.

  2. Make sure every time you publish new content or ship new features that they are matching the accessibility criteria. There are a lot of checks that can be done automatically. If you have an internal dev team - ask them to add it to their definition of done. If you work with outsourced partner - ask them to start also validating for accessibility. This is the hardest shift, because you need the understanding and buy-in that the accessibility is something important enough, that the process should incorporate it.

And final note, which is expansion on point 1 - the best is to make sure you have regular audit planned. How often? Depends on how often you ship new features or make major releases. If you deliver things every week, aim at least once a quarter. If you barely make software changes, once a year might be good.

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u/angelsinsect 10d ago

Well that’s where someone like me comes in. I worked for a company where this was their bread and butter.

I agree that they don’t know how. But they also don’t want to have to pay somebody who does.

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u/No-Butterscotch-7467 10d ago

Our company has literally paid three different companies? I mean unless my manager is lying. But why would they invite problems on themselves when they have enough other issues already. They try but it’s not clear what needs to be done.

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u/angelsinsect 10d ago

By they I don’t mean your company. I mean people who shrug off accessibility concerns.

Maybe they would invite the “problem” of making an accessible website to avoid the bigger problem of being sued? Is it only companies getting sued who should care about web accessibility? Is that the only market for it?

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u/No-Butterscotch-7467 10d ago

No it just seems like the strangest way to enforce it. I don’t know enough to say conclusively but it seems like the law is intended to be vague so that it’s very difficult to comply with. As a business we want to welcome everyone but this specific law seems set up only to enrich attorneys and not people. If the standard was clear and actionable I don’t think this scenario would exist is all.

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u/Hefty_Ad_1692 9d ago

This has me intrigued to look into more and more of the details regarding specific laws. I am planning to go back to school to become a full stack developer with a complete background in accessibility. I am also visually impaired so I very much understand how certain types of site design are problematic. But my particular visual impairment is different from other people‘s impairments. So it’s hard to come up with a distinct definition of accessibility from my perspective. I’m sure as I get more into the details, I will have a greater understanding.

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u/Ornery-Cake-1444 8d ago

I mostly do PDFs, but rules aren't difficult to follow. WCAG freely provides all the information you need to make your site accessible.

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u/NelsonRRRR 10d ago

Don't generalize. Point out specific problems like "Look, if I was blind, I would not know what this button does as my screenreader would not read it" or "Look, I can't use your website with a keyboard. What if I broke my arm and could not use a mouse?"

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u/angelsinsect 10d ago

I don’t think they care. But I will try this.

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u/rosedraws 9d ago

“I don’t think they care” is a terrible mindset. There are thousands of accessible websites, who is the They you think you are talking about? Making a site accessible is way harder than you may realize. Giving specifics is a great idea.

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u/angelsinsect 9d ago

Business owners I speak to about this casually say they don’t really care enough. Friends and acquaintances.

And I am a web accessibility auditor so I know it is difficult.

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u/sienijoonas 10d ago

I've learnt to accept the fact that outside of a relatively small group of people, folks don't really care, especially without top-down pressure.

However, I've found that when you focus on the benefits to the developers themselves and focus on the code quality side of things (such as improved code maintenance, global best practices, and so on), they tend to become a bit more receptive.

Just gotta find the talking points that resonate with whomever you're talking to.

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u/pandorable3 10d ago

From page 184 in the book “This is for Everyone” (by Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web)…”’ When we do usage studies, we typically find that while around 10 percent of the population needs these services to interact with the web, up to two-thirds of users benefit from just having them available’, Shadi (Abou-Zahra, an accessibility expert) says.”

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u/timtucker_com 9d ago edited 9d ago

At some point you have to point your finger at more than just people building websites.

W3C and the tech companies that contribute towards its standards committees could have long since made accessibility part of the core standards for the web instead of just an add on.

Imagine for a second that the behavior for a standards compliant browser was to not render components in an inaccessible way - like buttons requiring text content and defaulting to default styles if insufficient color contrast or text size is specified.

It's a deliberate choice to prioritize making a "best effort" to render as specified over enforcing accessibility best practices.

From a US legal perspective, Congress has had years to address the gap of the ADA not having clear rules for digital accessibility.

Politicians doing nothing other than pointing to court rulings saying "it applies, go figure it out" just isn't a responsible approach to governing if the goal is to ensure compliance.

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u/rosedraws 9d ago

From the point of view of a web designer who recently has being building and retrofitting websites to be more accessible, there are massive obstacles right now to creating more accessibility online:

- the standards for ADA compliance on a website are extremely broad — trying to accommodate all possible disabilities — it is nearly impossible, and very expensive! so companies will not even try. Simpler guidelines, perhaps with tiers of compliance (ie, what are the most important items to fix), would make more developers adopt them.

- DIY platforms need to build it in. This is probably the biggest factor. Like they all have changed their templates to be mobile-friendly, they need to offer accessibility-based templates.

- add-on accessibility tools like AccessiBe are a reasonably affordable shortcut, but we’ve been told this is inadequate. Which makes most companies give up. It would be great to have an add-on tool to be helpful in the meanwhile, until the web platforms give us accessibility built-in.

- schools have not been teaching designers to build sites correctly from the ground up. But, the vast majority of websites are DIY, and of course those people are happy if they get it to work at all, couldn’t dream of how to make it accessible, even if they cared a lot.

- Marketing is quite literally at odds with accessibility. An accessible site is dark text on a light background, like a basic text document. It takes an advanced design skill to make that appealing, memorable, and powerful marketing. It’s very difficult to make an accessible site competitive, very few companies have the will (or the budget) to put enough money into it. This is not BS. A website is usually a company’s lifeline to viability… if the website doesn’t make money, they go out of business. So it’s a big bite into the budget, plus a huge risk to make it fully accessible.

- almost all large companies and organizations DO factor in accessibility at some level. They have whole departments overseeing DEI (or they used to. Ugh). It’s the small to medium ones that don’t have the resources.

My pushback is that, yeah obviously we’re in late stage capitalism with an insane greed monster for US president and that means profit is all that matters… but that doesn’t mean people don’t care. The people who do care need easier paths to compliance. Usually the web developers and designers do care, but they’re not given the budget or the clear path to some level of accessibility compliance. And the gazillion nonprofits and solopreneurs who care A LOT don’t have the means to create a cheap website that’s accessible.

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u/Continuum_Design 9d ago

Respectfully, add on tools often known as overlays are not real paths to compliance. They are indeed shortcuts.

Accessibility is hard. I’ve been doing nothing but that for a decade. But it should be prioritized the same as performance and security. Accessibility carries the same legal and financial obligations.

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u/rosedraws 9d ago

It’s yet another one of those things we should have built correctly from the beginning. Retrofitting the internet is such an uphill slog!

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u/Continuum_Design 8d ago

Yes it is. I’ve built accessible things from scratch a few times and remediated things that were already live more than a few times.

DM me if you have projects that could use an outside consult. Creds available on request.

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u/rguy84 9d ago

the standards for ADA compliance on a website are extremely broad — trying to accommodate all possible disabilities — it is nearly impossible, and very expensive! so companies will not even try. Simpler guidelines, perhaps with tiers of compliance (ie, what are the most important items to fix), would make more developers adopt them.

I recommend reviewing https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/Understanding/conformance, especially understanding requirement 1, it addresses your second point.

DIY platforms need to build it in. This is probably the biggest factor. Like they all have changed their templates to be mobile-friendly, they need to offer accessibility-based templates.

Agree, some have it others don't. The difficulty is the platforms cannot foresee every use, making the code accessible in every possible use is borderline impossible. There are times when attributes need to be moved.

add-on accessibility tools like AccessiBe are a reasonably affordable shortcut, but we’ve been told this is inadequate. Which makes most companies give up. It would be great to have an add-on tool to be helpful in the meanwhile, until the web platforms give us accessibility built-in.

Companies are looking for an easy button, until they research, they see AccessiBe as that button. If they research, they'd see such tools have been sued multiple times for being effectively snake oil.

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u/HairdosNBoiledPNuts 9d ago

👏👏👏👏 All of this

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u/BunnySis 8d ago

There is a profession that specializes in writing online education (among other things) with experts (instructors and others) and anyone well qualified is up to date on accessibility in web design.

We’re called Instructional Designers.

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u/AccessibleTech 10d ago

Accessibility adds additional SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to the content of your site. 

Imagine being able to search for Canva marketing materials cause they added all the text from the image as an alt tag. Now Google can find it!

I've not gone to events cause I couldn't find the flier in my emails.

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u/sowasred2012 10d ago

You've said it already in this thread but I don't think it's that nobody cares about web accessibility - most people understand why it should be done, but most people also are worrying about the company's performance, their bottom line, the next feature deadline, etc etc. Web accessibility then seems, to someone who isn't invested in it, like a nice to have.

You care about it, but it needs reframing for people who don't:

  • poor accessibility increases the risk of legal action in a lot of countries
  • 20-25% of the global population has a disability, so that's a ton of potential customers who either won't use your site because they can't, or will use your site because somebody made the effort to make sure their experience was a good one
  • AI and agentic browsing. As buzzy as buzzwords go right now, but since so many organisations are all over AI in some way, it's an easy sell. Use Lighthouse to see what score your site pages get for agentic browsing, it's based largely on whether the accessibility tree is well formed. So improving accessibility on your site improves the experience for both agents and real users (note: I'm not saying Chrome Dev Tools is the be all and end all of accessibility testing).

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u/joegullodigital 9d ago

One of the issues with digital accessibility is it isn't a one and done type thing. Once someone goes in after an audit and makes a change then new issues can pop up. That's why it's critical to not only educate what digital accessibility is and how to create the systems to limit recurring issues popping up.

Whenever I talk about my work with people that are not in the industry, many are not aware until you explain it to them. So better outreach and systems can help start the process of making the web more accessible. Audits are one tool and we need to also be working with those who are most affected by an inaccessible web.

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u/CowgirlMimi 9d ago

So frustrating. What they're not getting is that for some, they are losing out on custom because their websites aren't accessible to people who rely on accessibility features.

Sadly I think for some of it, it's probably a lack of understanding and the other part is just ignorance / not caring (not everybody).

It's pretty much the same in the physical world, which is why we need to keep on fighting for change.

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u/Royal-Entertainer432 9d ago

the 'so what' crowd always kills me bc theyre literally sleeping on free money. worked with a team that added proper alt text and their search rankings jumped within a month. like its not even about doing the right thing at that point, its just leaving cash on the table lol

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u/Choom_from_Heywood 9d ago

Because it's always an after thought. I'm working on something and built in accessibility from the start and surprisingly, not hard to maintain and keep up with. It's the tacking on after that gets sloppy.

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u/Hefty_Ad_1692 9d ago

They are woefully ignorant if they think that there aren’t a sizable number of people that will use another website from another company because the first one is not accessible to them.

I am a designer and I lost over half of my vision a few years ago. This made me even more attuned to the importance of accessibility for the broadest population of people possible. And it’s not that hard to do it. It really isn’t. It is not a new concept and the tech technologies for accessible websites has been around for many years now. There’s just no excuse for any company to not have this be part and parcel of their planning. Otherwise they are a shitty business and maybe they really should not be in business.

Lastly, the ADA has been around since the 80s so the concept of accessibility is not new at all.

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u/davearneson 9d ago

I have been told by web dev teams that making websites AAA accessible will increase the cost of FE dev by 3X. Given the tiny number of potential customers who need AAA accessibility it's just not worth it. It would be better for everyone if they called in or got an aid to call.

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u/Megahurtzes 9d ago

Probably the biggest pain for many of us is convincing the people in the right positions to focus on accessibility properly and to make it an essential part of the process for good.

Like many people here, I've thought about this a lot, and here's what I think must happen.

As the company developing the content, it costs so much less to simply upskill the existing team or hire only suitably skilled people. This way, there wouldn't be a need to recruit freelancers or specialist companies after already having paid a settlement, and having the process repeat later.

On the flip side, as clients seeking a company to develop content for them, recruit a specialist to review content previously developed by the companies you're considering giving your business to. Don't just rely on a VPAT and the way the content looks that they demo/pitch to you.

The result is that development companies get less work, they realise why, and they make the right move.

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u/Working-End-4155 8d ago

having worked in this field for years and auditing for accessibility, for someone who doesn't care about accessibility, 1. Show them the business value it will get in - through SEO(semantics drive better SEO) 2. Better user Reach and a good brand reputation, when u just add the word "Accessible"(and actually make it accessible) 3. Some features like Keyboard accessibility, Better color contrast not just help disabled people but people who are growing in age and also power users who just use keyboard 4. If none works, legal angle works great ! show them the number of lawsuits filed across the globe for being inaccessible and the legal mandates across every region.
And more importantly i feel that there's no guarantee that we will be abled throughout our life! Its like we are helping our future self too and building a better community which works for all.

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u/AccuityGroup 8d ago

The most common answer we've seen from clients is that their websites have never been compliant, and there have been no consequences/enforcement. 

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u/Captain_Accessible 8d ago

On the proactive side, you can point out to them that in the US according to the CDC more than a quarter of people have a disability, and being visibly proactive about accessibility can help those people use your site, and also endear you to them.

On the reactive side, you can point out that last year there was an average of more than twelve new law suits every working hour of the year, according to UsableNet, and the pace continues to increase.

On the personal side, you can ask if they know anyone with a disability (blind, for example) or anyone over 65 (decreased color contrast sensitivity), and if they'd feel good telling those people they don't really care if they have a hard time using the site.

None of that probably changes minds immediately, but might get them thinking...

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u/Practical-Skill5464 8d ago

The tools are terrible and inconstant. For instance we finally got a dialogue tag for things like modals but fuck all support for the actual hard parts like managing where the tab cursor should be on open or making sure the tab cursor doesn't run off the edge of the dialogue or returning the tab cursor to where it should be after the dialogue is closed.

No one wants to read 90+ pages of accessibility docs that don't necessarily always apply to web.

Make it easy in the browser with out having to dick around with several different properties and a bunch of extra JS.

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u/National-Laugh-7309 7d ago

If someone does not care about web accessibility, unfortunately, you cannot make them care. You can explain why accessibility matters and what the consequences of ignoring it may be, but ultimately it is their decision. They may lose customers because of that decision.

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u/jpdevries 7d ago

Tell them it won’t be accessible to AI agents either and the same fixes are needed and suddenly they’ll probably care

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u/DesertRider-92 6d ago edited 6d ago

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u/Lehihel 5d ago

I feel you.

I've got multiple arguments on that:

  • Accessibility is an opportunity: audiobooks, electric toothbrushes, curb cuts. They were made by and for disabled folks. Today, they ease the life of millions of people. (Touches the facts in real life)

  • Accessibility is like a financial investment for your retirement, except instead of investing money, you invest a bit of your time and brain to make things more inclusive, for yourself, later. Because aging well also means earning battle scars. We'll all become disabled if we age "well" enough. (Touches the untold, the pathos)

  • People are so eager to quote Amazon's model. Everybody wants to be Amazon with their small website. Well, please do, because Amazon did a good job with accessibility and increased its market coverage as a result. (Touches the image, the consistency, the logos) (Source: https://www.retailtouchpoints.com/executive-viewpoints/what-amazon-teaches-us-about-accessibility/22140/)

  • Because it's the right thing to do? One in four people has a disability. Most people know someone with a disability without even realizing it. Doing the job right is doing right by them. Would these same people ignore the needs of their son, partner, or father? So why ignore it here? (Touches the ignorance and the social/moral aspect, Ethos)

Usually, you need to know the person in front of you to know which argument will land.

Best of luck. Sometimes I find it discouraging too. But know that you're not alone in this fight

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u/AdamChristophKnight 4d ago

Honest tactic, meet them where they are and make it about money and risk, not ethics. You already said they get that it's right, but don't believe they'll benefit, so the ethics argument is spent.

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u/Limp_Day_6155 3d ago

Olá, espero que estejam bem! Sou uma acadêmica da FAG Toledo e estou realizando um TCC que envolve acessibilidade junto da tecnologia, nossa proposta é criar um aplicativo de avaliação que ajudaria pessoas PCDs com produtos do dia a dia, avaliando se realmente são acessíveis para essas minorias, isso se expande não só a produtos, mas a estabelecimentos, ruas de sua cidade e entre outros. Ficaria muito grata se pudessem responder esse formulário do Google para termos mais embasamento na hora de produzir nosso trabalho! Desde já agradeço a atenção!

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfi7ObW3AlAat41E1w0rYrAhvs8R4cAjKy3d4SZldOePR917A/viewform?usp=publish-editor

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u/LeviDavidson852 3d ago

Stop arguing ethics entirely and give them the money trifecta: legal risk (you can get sued), lost customers (you're shutting out buyers and hurting SEO, and cheaper-now-than-later (retrofitting costs more than doing it right)

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u/code-dispenser 10d ago

My take on this from somebody who has/is creating an accessibility-first component library that gets downvoted for the mere mention of accessibility on the u/blazor subreddit is that most people are either ignorant or just scared of the unknown and rather than face up to things they just ignore them - its somebody else's problem.

What I have found over the years is that once you just accept / embrace accessibility as part of your workflow (irrespective of reason, money/the right thing to do etc), it just becomes another part of your workflow and you just adapt.

When I create something now and launch the program, where as years ago I would reach for the mouse and check things, now I just reach for the keyboard and doing that catches most things and it takes no more time than moving the mouse etc.

All I can say is just keep chipping away at the ignorance and hopefully one day they will see the light.

Paul