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Ask HN: Is accessibility worth it?

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Ask HN: Is accessibility worth it?

#1

Post by sharps_xp »

ive been reading a lot about progressive enhancement, aria, browser feature support, and as an aspiring bootstrapper, it seems like a ton of work.

can someone present an argument that making a website accessible for a wider audience FIRST makes good business sense?

or alternatively, can anyone vouch for any tooling to make accessibility easier?

also, related, i have a friend who runs an e-commerce business and there are litigious entities suing them because their site is not accessible. they, under a different name, also provide services to update the site so that it is accessible.

Re: Ask HN: Is accessibility worth it?

#2

Post by BitwiseFool »

If we are being absolutely honest, no, making your MVP comply with all of the accessibility guidelines before going live is not worth the effort. Given that most sites/projects/startups end up shutting down early-on, the odds that your project will end up being used by anyone with significant impairments is very low from the start. I believe medium to large size businesses should absolutely accommodate for accessibility, but the burden is really high and the benefit is really low for smaller services.

All this being said, the cottage industry of lawyers going around suing people for ADA violations is significant and something to be aware of. What I would suggest is that you do the bare minimum of accessibility accommodation, based on your jurisdiction, and only look into adding more accommodations as you grow and scale.

Edit: It makes sense to give alt text for images, use good contrast, and to follow best practices for UI/UX. See what the major complaint(s) are against your friend and try to avoid that for the time being. In essence, don't feel compelled to pay a consultant thousands of dollars for an amount of accessibility that is overkill at this stage.

Lastly, what I wrote sounded harsh, and I really do wish you the best. I would hate to have you spend thousands on premature accessibility and potentially lose the ability to fund something else that might help your project. Best of luck.

Re: Ask HN: Is accessibility worth it?

#3

Post by steven-xu »

In the United States, the common interpretation of Section 508 requires that vendors and vendors of vendors of federal government contractors adhere to WCAG 2.0. Building it from the start prevents you from having to redesign parts of your work and churn your users when you choose to pursue this market.

A minority of your users may have permanent disabilities but many have many have temporary or situational (looking at their phone in a bright coffee shop, forgot their glasses) disabilities, and building to common a11y standards allows you to use off-the-shelf tools (e.g. axe) to easily and semi-automatically help maintain that you can deliver a good experience in these circumstances.

Some surveys I've been aware of find a surprising amount (1/3 to 1/2) of users use screen magnifiers. This isn't common among developers who have 30" IPS monitors and good or well-corrected vision, but it is more common in the general population. Anecdotally, many people have awful displays too.

Re: Ask HN: Is accessibility worth it?

#4

Post by tra3 »

I've worked in education previously. Apart from being mandated by the gov't, lots of kids have issues so making allowances for them makes sense.

We had to retrofit some of the WCAG functionality into our product. Possible but better to have it as a requirement up front. The thing is, modern browsers are really good about accessibility so you gotta go out of your way to mess it up.

In my opinion it's like having ramps for wheelchairs. Not the first thing that needs to go up, but it should be soon. If you don't design your building with the ramp in mind you usually end up with an ugly design.

Re: Ask HN: Is accessibility worth it?

#5

Post by lashkari »

It helps to reframe your thoughts on accessibility as a subset of user experience (UX). Putting aside any potential moral argument, how important is UX to your business/project?

When accessibility is thought about and incorporated ahead of time, your overall user experience tends to be better. This is sometimes referred to as Universal Design.

I managed a project where we implemented a UI redesign for our existing enterprise SaaS software and we "went the extra mile" to not just make the experience accessible but to make that experience pleasant for our users with disabilities. In the end, some of the features -- especially around keyboard navigation -- that came out of that accessibility work were considered the best part of the redesign to our users.

Re: Ask HN: Is accessibility worth it?

#7

Post by sharps_xp »

gnicholas wrote: post #6

I'm not sure I'm correctly understanding your last paragraph. Are you saying that an entity is suing your friend, and an affiliate of that entity is offering them remediation services?

yes, either that or there’s a partnership where one presents a problem and the other sells a solution

Re: Ask HN: Is accessibility worth it?

#9

Post by [deleted] »

sharps_xp wrote: post #7
gnicholas wrote: post #6

I'm not sure I'm correctly understanding your last paragraph. Are you saying that an entity is suing your friend, and an affiliate of that entity is offering them remediation services?

yes, either that or there’s a partnership where one presents a problem and the other sells a solution

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Is accessibility worth it?

#10

Post by quinnjh »

lashkari wrote: post #5

It helps to reframe your thoughts on accessibility as a subset of user experience (UX). Putting aside any potential moral argument, how important is UX to your business/project? When accessibility is thought about and incorporated ahead of time, your overall user experience tends to be better. This is sometimes referred to as Universal Design. I managed a project where we implemented a UI redesign for our existing en…

Love this comment and the connection between UX and universal design. From a reductionist standpoint theres little value, from an expansive standpoint accessibility is literally how you make your product accessible to more customers
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