How do you convince clients to make websites accessible?

Convincing clients to prioritize website accessibility involves highlighting its legal compliance, potential to reach a wider audience, SEO benefits, positive brand image, enhanced user experiences, competitive advantage, cost-effectiveness, long-term investment, successful case studies, accessibility demos, legal expertise, alignment with inclusive design principles, customization options, training opportunities, and adherence to government and industry standards. This comprehensive approach demonstrates the holistic benefits of accessibility.

One thing I found helpful is, that if you optimize for accessibility from the beginning you get a better coded, faster website and mostly also with a better UX.

Accessibility is central to my work in designing and constructing healthcare websites for the NHS. While it may seem like an obstacle to some, accessibility is actually a powerful tool that benefits everyone. By designing websites that are accessible, we can provide equal access to information and empower vulnerable individuals to navigate the digital world with ease. This has helped to reduce patient call traffic and enabled Healthcare partners to focus on treating patients.

In my experience the costs can be kept quite low, when the development team is trained and automated checks are done regularly. In addition it makes sense to start from the beginning

Sharing examples of websites built with accessibility in mind can inspire others to do the same. Commercially, food retailers may choose to include non-accessible content like PDF menus for convenience. However, having a digital menu on your website can improve your SEO and attract more patrons to your restaurant. Websites with a menu page tend to be more popular than those with downloadable menus, likely because the accessible option is easier to view on mobile devices. I have also found that studios that build sites with accessibility in mind have a tendency to keep the cost of doing so low or incorporate it into the normal website build cost.

As part of my role with NHS Healthcare partners, I often share guides and tips with our clients to keep them informed of the latest guidance. Having a blog or social media platform to share this information is beneficial and provides clients with the best possible experience. I have noticed that clients who understand what is possible and what is not tend to ask more challenging questions, which enables you and your team to provide a better service.

During the development process of a new website, I share examples of best practices. This helps me share examples of accessible websites as well as gather insight into what a client is after in terms of design style. Limiting the examples to your own work enables you to have some control over website features and functions that you are used to building and prevents delays in the build if you have to research the accessible nature of the code snippet. The advice is to remember that not all code online is accessible so you need to make sure you test this fully before implementing it.

It's simple, outside of the cost and challenges, improving your ranking and standing to an organic audience is how you convince your client to invest in accessibility. On a web level, alt-text in images can help a search engine crawler determine the context for an image, and prioritize this information. Making your site more "readable", while also an accessibility feature can help with SEO. On a social level, sites like TikTok & YouTube prioritize videos with captions over those without to share with an organic audience.