You've just realized that you've got a legal requirement to make your site or service accessible. But what does that even mean? Accessibility is just about letting blind people use your website. Right?
Wrong.
The clue is really in the name. It's about enabling access. To your site, to your app, to your content, to your e-commerce shop. And it's about enabling that access to as many people as possible.
Sure, those folks who can't see anything shouldn't be prevented from giving Beyonce their cash money. But it's about so much more than that.
In the UK alone, over 20% of people have some form of disability, and it's expected that almost everybody on the planet at some point in their lives will have some form of disability, whether permanent or temporary. There are 8 billion people on this planet.
There are so many types of disabilities, and not all of them are visible. And each of them poses somebody, somewhere, a problem in accessing what you're trying to provide or share:
- Visual Includes blindness, colour blindness, low vision, and deaf-blindness.
- Physical Includes amputation, Arthritis, Fibromyalgia (Rheumatism), reduced dexterity, Repetitive Stress Injury (RSI), tremors, spasms, and paralysis.
- Cognitive, learning and neurological Includes Attention Defecit Hyperactivity Disorded (ADHD), Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), intellectual/learning difficulties, memory impairment, Multiple Sclerosis (MS), Seizure disorders, and mental health disabilities.
- Speech Includes Apraxia of Speech (AoS), cluttering/tachyphemia, Dysarthria, Stuttering, and muteness.
- Auditory Includes hard of hearing, deafness, and deaf-blindness.
These don't even cover some temporary forms of disability that could affect somebody's access to your site or service. Somebody holding a baby in their arms trying to use their phone at the same time, or somebody with a broken arm trying to type to fill in forms. These are still barriers to access, and in making your services as accessible as possible, you're even helping these people too.
Accessibility should not be a consideration. It should not be second thought. It should not be 'in version 2'.
Accessibility is a legal right and a legal requirement and it should be part of your process. It should always be at the forefront of your minds, and it should never be seen as a 'nice to have'.