Why web accessibility is even more important in 2020 and in the face of COVID-19

At Adapt, we have previously stressed the importance of accessibility on the web. Ensuring web accessibility accommodates users who are digitally challenged, but also greatly improves the user experience for non-challenged users. 

However, if you are still not convinced, let us give you a few reasons why, In 2020 and in the face of COVID-19, you should ensure that web accessibility is a top priority in your digital presence.  

During the last few months of the COVID-19 pandemic, people’s lives changed dramatically. Suddenly, working and studying from home has become the norm. Resulting in a tremendous increase in remote meetings and online classes around the world. With the overnight message that people should stay at home, COVID-19 forced new groups of users to engage in online activities such as shopping, education and information seeking with public authorities. 

Research shows that around 30% of people between the age of 16-64 years consider themselves to have some form of disability that may work as a barrier in their ability to access the digital world. During the pandemic, all of these people, who might have walked down to a physical store pre-COVID-19, have been forced to use the internet to acquire basic necessities such as food, clothes and toilet paper. This provides ecommerce and grocery websites with many new potential customers. 

Furthermore, people considered ‘high risk’, mostly people in the older part of the population (75 years and above), became unable to walk down to the grocery store to buy groceries or buy new clothes from the nearest clothing store. They now had to turn to the internet for help.

Even though many elderly people consider themselves to have good skills within the digital realm, it cannot be denied that age-related impairments such as the decline of eyesight and fine motor skills can work as a barrier for the use of digital websites and products. Especially, if the creators of these products have not focused on ensuring a certain amount of web accessibility.

As we have seen a huge increase in the number of people who have bought groceries online, the platforms that have had a continuous focus on ensuring web accessibility will have had a great advantage over those that have not. To put this advantage into numbers, a study made by the british Click-Away Pound found that 69% of the surveyed people who meet an inaccessible website will simply leave the site right away. 

Without focusing on web accessibility in your digital presence, you may exclude a large amount of potential customers who will need to turn to the competitor.  

Ensuring a certain level of web accessibility is not limited to accommodate these new groups of potential customers, but it will also work towards maximizing your existing customer base. 

Many of the accessibility features and actions, that are developed with digitally challenged individuals in mind, will most certainly have a positive spill-over effect on able bodied individuals as well. Elements, such as securing a consistent design and navigation, providing understandable content, clear color contrasts and a website that can be navigated by both keyboard and a screen reader are a few of the things that cater to both people with disabilities, elderly people – and everyone else in general. The features and actions that are essential for making sure that people with disabilities can use the internet are also providing a better user experience for everyone. 

Captioning in videos is essential for people with hearing disabilities, but also important for people in loud environments, or even individuals who are not comfortable speaking a specific language. 

Large and easy-to-press buttons are Essential for people with deteriorating motor skills, but important for people running or people travelling in a shaky bus. 

Navigating a website with a keyboard is essential for people with one arm, but important for people, who have broken a hand or a person holding their infant child.

Apart from providing a much better user experience, ensuring web accessibility is also closely related to better Search Engine Optimization (SEO). 

This means that Google will reward you and your business if you ensure a certain level of web accessibility initiatives, such as providing alternative texts for images and descriptive links which can be read by a screen reader and a Google crawler. 

The law of web accessibility progresses

Another reason to ensure a certain level of web accessibility is the lawful aspects of the area. The Danish Agency of Digitization (Digitaliseringsstyrelsen) has had an increasing focus on establishing laws aimed at ensuring a more accessible web over the last couple of years. 

Mainly focusing on public institutions and bodies that are governed by public law, it has been decided that all public institutions’ websites should be accessible by the 23rd of September 2020. In this case, accessible means complying with the WCAG 2.1 guidelines level A and AA.

Even though the lawful aspects should not be the only reason for you and your business to consider designing with web accessibility in mind, it is undeniably an important aspect. Companies and institutions that have had a continuous focus on ensuring web accessibility and complying with the WCAG standards have therefore had an advantage over those that have not. 

And who knows how long it takes before the lawful aspects of web accessibility will include the private sector?

Web accessibility is a social responsibility

At last, it is important to note that web accessibility is not only an aspect of increased business opportunities and larger market share. At Adapt, we believe that creating inclusive and accessible websites is a societal responsibility. 

As the world we live in and the information we obtain become increasingly digital, ensuring that websites are accessible for people regardless of impairments and disabilities is a way of providing equal access and equal opportunity for all.

Digital platforms might enable people with different types of impairments to participate in society in a way that is difficult in the physical world. Therefore it is important that these platforms are inclusive and accessible. 

How can we help?

If you would like to learn more about web accessibility and how we can help you become WCAG-compliant don't hesitate to reach out.