Why Care About Web Accessibility

Written by Matt Tolman

Published: Oct. 20, 2022

Estimated reading time: 5 min read

For most people, websites are visual experiences. We see images, we read text, we move the mouse,scroll with our fingers, tap or click on buttons, etc. The only way most people change howthey interact with sites is by switching to another device, such as from a computer to aphone.

However, for many people this is not the case. In 2020, there were 7.5 million americanswith visual impairments[1] with that number rising to over 8 millionin 2021[2]. For these Americans, "seeing" website images, text, buttons,etc. is either extremely difficult or not an option. Additionally, other disabilities can impact auser's ability to interact with many websites, such as paralysis limiting ability to move mouses,lack of fine motor controls making it hard or impossible to tap or click on desired elements,cognitive impairment, hearing loss, etc. The CDC states that 61 million Americans live with adisability[3].

When the internet was first made, it was very accessible[4]. Most pages were made of textwith most text being fairly well described with components. Interactivity, inaccessible styling,heavy use of images, etc. was not very common. Adapting a text document to a screen reader was fairlystraight forward and automatic. Today, semantic HTML code is still mostly accessible by default[5][6]. The only exceptions are withsome newer, less used tags that require a bit of extra setup, like <video>[7]. Ifdevelopers write good code, then most websites should be accessible without much overhead.

Yet many websites are not accessible, and because of that many developers are pushing the disabledoff the internet or even away from computing entirely. Americans with disabilities are less likelyto own an internet connected device and are three times more likely to not use the internet[8].Research in the UK also confirmed that people with disabilities are over twice as likely to not usethe internet[9].

This is not to say most developers are malicious or intentionally pushing people off the internet.However, malice is not needed to create inaccessible websites. Only incompetence, lack of knowledgeor training, lack of testing, or lack of budget and priority is needed to create a website thatfails to accommodate for the needs of millions of people.

Fortunately, the failures of developers is starting to cost companies money. Many companies aregetting sued or have been sued because of inaccessible websites, including Electronic Arts, Target,Netflix, Nike, Draft Kings, Amazon, Park Entertainment, and Domino's, with many companies losingcourt trials or settling out of court[10]. These losses are starting to create awarenessat the business level, which is starting to change the landscape. Business, like Intuit, investin training employees about accessibility with Ted Drake[11] being a leading advocate.Changes at the business level are providing knowledge and training needed to improve developerskills. They are also starting to help prioritize budgets for accessibility and projects to helptest products for accessibility. As the trend grows to being more accessible, the importance ofknowing how to create accessible websites will grow in the web development community.

For information on how to make accessible websites, W3C has published several articles onaccessibility[12].The a11y project also provides many resources on the topic[13].

For those who want a similar format to "100 Days of Code", there is "100 days of A11y"[14].

For those wanting more "hands on" guidance, there is the book "Inclusive Components" by HeydonPickering[15], or even his associated blog[16].