Your team is hesitant about prioritizing accessibility in UX. How can you convince them of its importance?

Several recent lawsuits against popular brands highlight the importance of digital accessibility. In 2023, over 4,600 web accessibility lawsuits were filed, targeting sectors like e-commerce, food services, and education. Legal risks are rising, especially with web accessibility widgets involved in 20% of cases. The users with disabilities were effectively barred from using these services, damaging the company’s reputation and losing potential customers. We don't see a direct relation but it affects employees as well. High settlement payouts and low revenue can lead to a company shutdown or mass layoffs. So, prioritizing accessibility fosters an inclusive user experience and safeguards the organization against potential legal challenges.

Convincing Your Team About Accessibility: Showcase accessibility's business value, provide practical tools and training, and celebrate successes.

Accessibility is crucial for creating an equitable design. And neglecting it lowers the userbase of your product, and may also lead to legal issues. It is important to educate one's team about the importance of accessibility and best practices so that every person can enjoy the product without any hindrance or pain. This ultimately leads to your product being aligned with the accessibility laws laid down by many governments, ensuring wide availability of the product and legal transparency.

Demonstrating that accessible design is just good design, goes a long way in helping to prioritize the work. Accessibility issues are often the direct result of visual usability issues. Framing the accessibility work as UI/UX improvements that all customers will see and feel makes it easier for teams to view accessibility remediation as something they would usually do, rather than additional work.

Provide compelling facts on the advantages of accessibility in UX, such as increased user pleasure and reaching a wider audience, to persuade your team of its necessity. Provide case studies and real-world examples of how accessible design has benefited businesses. Emphasize the legal obligations and the consequences of non-adherence. Engage in empathy exercises or usability testing with users with impairments to personally illustrate the difficulties they encounter. Stress that accessibility adheres to inclusive and ethical design principles and enhances the user experience for all users, not just those with disabilities.

It is very important to understand that Prioritizing accessibility in UX design broadens your user base by including people with disabilities or abnormalities and it improves overall usability for everyone. It enhances your brand’s reputation in terms of usability and accessibility, increases SEO rankings which directly leads to broadening the audience or user base, it gives extra strength in aspect of empathy which directly leads to a strong foundation of the company and provides a competitive edge.

Implementing accessibility in products helps to cover a wider user range. This also contributes to the success of the products. Accessibility isn't just nice to have, it is essential. It's about making sure everyone, regardless of their abilities, can shop with ease. A successful website is an accessible one. When we design with accessibility in mind, we're not just doing the right thing. We're opening doors to a wider user range.

Making digital products accessible isn't just about compliance; it's about tapping into a vast and often overlooked market segment. By ensuring inclusivity, you not only welcome millions of people with disabilities but also create a ripple effect that reaches their families and friends, who often prioritize inclusive products. This broader reach can significantly boost your product's success and demonstrate a commitment to social responsibility, proving that accessibility is a smart and profitable business decision.

The general outlook or approach towards business should be one that foster meeting the needs and prioritizing the satisfaction of all demographics disabled or not. The ability of your design to fulfill this need not only speaks professionalism but consideration and adherence to business orthodox marketing strategy

Implementing accessible design opens up your product to a larger audience. By accommodating users with disabilities, you’re not only adhering to legal standards but also expanding your market reach. An inclusive design approach ensures that your product is usable by as many people as possible, which can translate to increased user engagement and potential revenue growth.

Accessibility is seen as a burden in a team as long as it is seen as additional work. The friction arises because of the belief that adhering to accessibility guidelines requires additional effort. If you look as these guidelines as an integral part of design process, you'll notice that it is not perceived as an obstacle anymore.

In my view, accessibility isn't just a topic for discussion—it's a fundamental aspect of thoughtful design. Prioritizing accessibility consistently leads to better, more inclusive solutions for all users. Achieving this doesn’t demand extensive resources, just a bit more research and careful planning. So designers, just take that step!

As a user experience designer, I see accessibility as essential. It opens our product to millions, including people with disabilities, temporary impairments, and older users. Accessibility improves usability for everyone, ensures legal compliance, and enhances our brand’s reputation. It also drives innovation and sets us apart from competitors. By investing in accessibility, we can reach new markets, increase revenue, and provide a better experience for all users.

Accessibility improvements often lead to enhanced usability for all users. Features designed to assist individuals with disabilities—such as clearer navigation, better contrast, and alternative text for images—can also benefit users with varying preferences and needs. This can lead to a more intuitive and satisfying user experience overall, benefiting everyone who interacts with your product.

Designing for people with disabilities is often seen as only benefiting a niche crowd, but that's not true! Take my sliding door as an example: it’s always been sticky and required extra effort to open. Today, with the heat and humidity in Toronto, I lazily tried to open it from my desk, but it wouldn’t budge. Frustrating! This failure made me realize I could easily fix it. After applying lubricant, the door opened effortlessly AND unexpectedly, it became much quieter. Perhaps my door can be an example for us all. Designers especially, don't wait to include the experience of those with limited abilities— their perspective enhances usability for everyone.

Making your product accessible can also make it easier and better for everyone to use, not just people with disabilities. When your product is easy to use, more people will like it and recommend it to others. This can help you get more customers and keep them happy. By focusing on accessibility, you're not only doing the right thing, but you're also making a smart choice that can help your business succeed.

Providing a competitive edge became one of the important jobs of UX designers and prioritising the accessibility gives you an extra edge over all competitors. There are few advantages that can be very useful for a company to provide an edge over other companies. - Market differentiation. - Incremental market research. - Enhancement in brand reputation. - Customer loyalty increases. There are some extra edges you can get by prioritising the accessibility in terms of competition.

Emphasizing accessibility not only reflects your commitment to inclusivity but also strategically positions your product in the market. By prioritizing accessible design, you cater to a wider audience, including users with diverse needs, thereby expanding your customer base. This approach not only meets ethical standards but also enhances your brand's reputation, fostering loyalty and trust among consumers. As awareness and demand for accessible products grow, your proactive stance can differentiate your brand and drive market success.

Viewing accessibility as a catalyst for innovation transforms constraints into opportunities for creative problem-solving. By addressing accessibility challenges, teams are often propelled to develop new technologies and design practices that benefit everyone. This shift from mere compliance to creative exploration fosters a culture of innovation, encouraging teams to uncover solutions that enhance user experiences universally.

I believe designing with accessibility in mind naturally pushes us to be more empathetic and user-centered. It forces us to go beyond the surface and deeply understand diverse user needs. This leads to cleaner interfaces, more intuitive navigation, and better usability. It’s not just about adding alt text or ensuring our color contrast meets standards; it’s about creating an experience that feels seamless and intuitive for every user. For instance, when working on making our app accessible to visually impaired users, we realized that simplifying our navigation structure benefited everyone, resulting in reduced cognitive load and higher engagement rates. Accessibility is the ultimate test of good design.

First of all it’s about respecting your users. By not doing anything about accessibility it’s like saying - we don’t care if some of our users can’t see the UI properly. So we will simply lose those users and potential earnings. Second of all soon most companies would have to legally make their products accessible (this already happened in many countries) so by making our product accessible now we are saving money we would spend in future on legal fees and rebuilding of our product later.

We should see accessibility as a fundamental pillar of sustainable growth. Investing in it upfront isn’t just a cost-saving measure—it’s about building resilient products that stand the test of time. We must shift our mindset from seeing accessibility as a checkbox to viewing it as a core product quality and longevity component. Consider companies like Apple, which have embedded accessibility into their DNA from day one. This foresight has saved them from massive redesign costs and positioned them as leaders in user experience.