You’re building a brand-new website for your business. It’s going to cost some money: You’ll need to hire designers, developers, and perhaps a search engine optimization (SEO) expert or two.
Can you afford to make your website accessible, too?
In a word, absolutely. In fact, if you ignore the best practices of accessibility, you’re leaving money on the table — and you’ll end up paying much more in the long run. Here’s why.
An accessible website shouldn't cost much more than an inaccessible website.
One of the most common accessibility myths is that accessibility means adding “unnecessary" features that aren’t applicable to 95% of your audience. That might mean an on-page text-to-speech reader, or a widget that magnifies content for low-vision users; it might mean giving users direct control over the website’s typeface, font size, and color scheme.
All of those improvements can be beneficial for some users (and with some tools, they’re fairly easy to implement). But those extra features aren’t strictly necessary for most websites: You simply need to build high-quality, inclusive content.
When you design to meet accessibility guidelines, people can use their own tools to adapt the content when needed. They can use screen readers, screen magnifiers, and keyboards (with no mouse) to move around your content.
In other words, you don’t need to provide people with new assistive technologies! You simply need to create content that works with existing tools. That’s not an inherently expensive process — it simply means making accessible design choices and writing clean code and markup.
Related: How Accessibility in the Web Development Process Saves Time
The best practices of WCAG make your website less expensive in the long run.
The guidelines for accessibility are the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The W3C is the same organization that publishes standards for HTML5 and other web technologies — and WCAG is firmly aligned with those standards, too.
Most WCAG standards are straightforward, and you won’t save money by ignoring them:
- WCAG SC 1.1.1, Non-text Content: Providing text alternatives for images is a fundamental content practice. It also benefits search engine optimization (SEO), and it only takes a few seconds per image to write accurate alt text.
- WCAG SC 1.4.3, Contrast (Minimum): Choosing color combinations with adequate contrast during the initial design phase is fairly easy when you use tools like AudioEye’s Color Contrast Checker. Of course, designers need to be aware of the importance of color contrast in order to make good decisions!
- WCAG SC 2.4.6, Headings and Labels: Using proper semantic HTML for headings and form labels from the outset is part of efficient development. It takes no more time than using non-semantic elements, but it greatly improves structure and navigation.
- WCAG SC 2.1.1, Keyboard: Building keyboard operability into interactive elements using standard development techniques from the start requires little additional time compared to the significant effort needed to fix inaccessible components later.
- WCAG SC 2.4.2, Page Titled: Defining clear and unique page titles as pages are created is a quick task, fundamental to both SEO and accessibility. It adds virtually no extra time to the development workflow — but remediating a website with hundreds of poor page titles can be costly.
It’s true that there are certain WCAG criteria that carry a cost, particularly if your website is full of complex content. But even if you’re designing a web app or something similar, you’ll save money in the long term by using clean, semantic markup: All websites eventually need to be redesigned or updated, and from a development standpoint, inclusive content is much easier to work with.
Related: Why Web Accessibility is Important: 4 Reasons to Create Accessible Content
While accessibility carries some costs, it's an investment that pays off.
Ignoring accessibility doesn't save money — it merely postpones inevitable costs and risks alienating a significant portion of potential customers. Building an inclusive website from the ground up is simply smart business.
Consider the following:
- More than 1 in 4 adults in the U.S. report having a disability. This is one of our favorite statistics for a reason: Many business leaders assume that folks with disabilities are a niche market, but that’s not the case.
- Globally, people with disabilities and their networks wield an estimated $13 trillion in annual disposable spending power. Regardless of your industry, you can’t afford to ignore that market.
- Over half (54%) of consumers with disabilities are more likely to purchase from companies that demonstrate authentic representation and inclusive values.
- Accessibility improvements often benefit all users, including the growing population of older adults, among whom approximately 2 in 5 report a disability.
Ready to ensure your website meets modern standards and reaches the widest possible audience? Contact the Bureau of Internet Accessibility for guidance, or get started today with a free website accessibility analysis from AudioEye.
