Pitching accessible and inclusive design solutions
We shouldn’t have to pitch the need to integrate this into our digital work process. Building solutions that are inclusive is part of our responsibility as designers. Everyone should care about creating solutions that a bigger audience can use. But that’s not always the case. In fact, that’s almost never the case. So for those who still have to make this pitch, I hope this article provides you with the proper arsenal for this battle.
Regardless of whether we’re creating an in-person exhibit experience or a digital experience, understanding your audience is crucial to positioning your solution. In order to successfully get buy-in for accessibility work to be a part of your current project processes, we also have to understand the mindset of our audience and their priorities.
I’m not claiming to be an accessibility (A11Y) expert. Being an A11Y advocate and an inclusive designer, I realize there’s always more learning to do in order to be mindful and inclusive in my work. I’m actively pursuing my CPACC (Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Competencies) via IAAP (International Association of Accessibility).
There are a lot of other articles out there, discussing what it means to build with accessibility in mind. If you’ve made it this far, I’m assuming that you have a basic understanding of what this means already. (If not, I would check out this article first). For that reason, I’m only focusing on how to pitch accessibility and the value to building inclusive solutions, to both clients and senior management.
The potential business lawsuits.
In 2020 alone, there has been 3,550 cases of website accessibility lawsuits filed against companies. Amongst those, 77.5% of those were against consumer goods and retail space. It’s been a “record-breaking year of ADA digital accessibility lawsuits”, according to the Hubspot report.
Target lost over $6 million + $3.7 million in legal fees for not having a site accessible for the Blind. Wells Fargo lost over $16 million for a similar lawsuit. And the most recent, Domino’s Pizza v. Guillermo Robles, is still ongoing, but the Supreme Court’s decision to side with the consumer is foreshadowing what’s to come for businesses.
If your business is in the retail space, you’re definitely on top of the targeted list. New York and California had the highest lawsuit rates compared to other states this past year. Even if you’re not retail, it doesn’t mean you’re immune, it just means you’re getting targeted at a later time.
It reaches a bigger audience.
Did you know that there are 61 million Americans have a disability? That’s 20% of the population. According to the Census Bureau, “19.9 million have difficulty lifting or grasping for mouse or keyboard usage, 15.2 million have a cognitive, mental, or emotional impairment, 8.1 million have a vision impairment and 7.6 million have a hearing impairment.” And that’s in the United States alone. That’s 1 in 4 households that are neglected by the digital experiences and social experiences we create as a brand. Let that sink in for a minute.
Often, we hear the rebuttal of not doing accessible work because “there’s not that many people with disabilities or it’s a minority group”, when in fact, we see that it’s still a significant amount of the population.
When you build inclusive designs, you’re not only solving for those with permanent disabilities, but also situational and temporary. This, in turn, increases the population significantly that we’re not reaching.
It’s the right thing to do.
The numbers we’ve already discussed in this article aren’t just numbers. They’re real people that we’re designing solutions for. As designers and UX strategists, it’s our job to design solutions not only for people who look like us, but a larger, diverse population.
At the end of the day, we make a bigger impact with the designs and solutions we’re creating by being inclusive. Regardless of which rationale you use to win this pitch, as long as you and your team are customer-centric, your solutions will take into consideration accessibility. But it’s important to note that accessibility is constantly evolving as our technology evolves. So it’s important to have curiosity and empathy with a desire for ongoing learning.
I’ll leave you with one final thought. What are you going to do to propel your work from moving beyond the biases and creating a better, more inclusive solution?
Some common questions that may come up during your pitch:
Do we have to fix all the things that’s not accessible?
Not at once because it’ll be a big overhaul and might even sound daunting to the team. But there should be an ongoing plan to make updates and changes iteratively. This is typically done through an accessibility audit and/or from usability testing (via screen readers or assistance from people with disabilities) where a full list of prioritized issues are identified. Just like SEO work, accessibility work is never a “one and done” task.
Isn’t this just adding more time and budget to our projects?
Why yes. Yes it is. If you didn’t incorporate accessibility as part of the project process initially, it will definitely take more time and money to re-work this into your code and overall customer experience.
It is only when accessibility is considered aftermath that it adds complexity because we’re trying to retrofit a solution into something that already exists. A great way to prevent this is to discuss the importance of accessibility early in the project. For your clients to understand the business value, but also internally, so everyone understands their role/impact in building an inclusive solution.
Has anyone else tried pitching the value of accessibility? What are some barriers you’ve come across? I’d love to hear them in the comments.
Additional sources:
Update as of May: Feel free to download my Accessibility Buy-In deck for your pitch!
