Accessibility for People
Web accessibility is about access for people.
Accessibility Imperative
Why is web accessibility lucrative for businesses?
Accessibility is Innovation
Accessibility is a major driver of innovation and invention:
Braille Code, E-Mail, Headphone, Keyboard, Microphone, Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), Printer, Punchcard, Scanner/OCR, Speech Recognition, Speech Synthesis, Spectogram, Subtitling, Talking Books, Telephone, Teletype, Transistor, Voice Indexing, ...
Source: Accessibility and Disability - A History of Innovation by Artur Ortega, Yahoo!
The Right Thing To Do
Web accessibility is the right thing to do:
- Unprecedented opportunity for equality
- UN human rights convention (UN CRPD)
- Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
- Viral marketing and reputation
- Increased potential market revenue
Legal Obligations
Web accessibility is often a legal obligation:
- Anti-discrimination acts
- Governmental policies
- Public procurement laws
Better User Experience
Web accessibility improves experience for all:
- ~57% benefit from accessibility (Microsoft)
- Ageing customers and employees (SAS)
- Mobile design and accessibility overlap
- Usable in different contexts (Boeing)
Return on Investment
Web accessibility has return on investment:
- Legal & General Group - doubled visitor numbers, cut maintenance costs by two thirds, increased natural search traffic by 50% (Legal & General case study, 2007)
- Tesco - £35 thousand GBP to build website, £13 million GBP per year in resultant revenue (Tesco case study, 2004)
- CNET - 30% increase in traffic from Google after CNET started providing transcripts (CNET case study, 2009)
Electronic Curb-Cut
