As an a11y web developer, I’ve heard every excuse in the book as to why accessibility isn’t relevant to a business or organization. It’s actually exhausting and repetitive. And let’s not forget just plain ignorant. I wanna talk about some of these excuses, why they’re wrong, who they negatively impact, and really just why they piss me off. And I’m not planning on holding any punches here.
Making my site accessible will ruin my aesthetic
One of the earliest anti-accessibility excuses I began hearing (specifically from designers) was that implementing accessibility into their designs would ruin their aesthetic. Every time I hear this I think the designer is a whiney little bitch. Not to mention lazy and uncreative. How can you call yourself a designer worth a paycheck if you can’t make a site look nice and be accessible?
Years and years ago when I first got into accessibility, I was so excited by the new “challenge.” I’m not even primarily a designer, but I do design. “How can I pull this off while maintaining accessibility integrity?” For me, inclusive design was exhilarating! So many new options and mini puzzles! And now, years and years later, it’s second nature to me. So for a bunch of designers who are so set in their inaccessible ways and too lazy to take their own heads out of their asses and realize there are more ways to do something than the repetitious ruts they’ve allowed themselves to fall into, and too scared to ever tell a client “this is inaccessible.” It’s cowardly and infuriating.
People think of accessible/inclusive/universal design needs to look like a flat website from 1998 and it simply isn’t true. I follow a lot of accessibility designers and they’re putting out websites that could put anyone on the Awwwards to shame (with the benefit of those designs reaching a broader audience). If you’re trying to tell me your aesthetic is white text on yellow buttons, unreadable cursive, small font sizes, and poorly designed reading orders, did you ever stop to think maybe your aesthetic is wrong? By saying “making my site accessible will ruin my aesthetic,” we hear “I like being uninclusive and I’m not planning on changing anytime soon.” It’s ableism at its finest – “it doesn’t negatively impact me, therefor it doesn’t matter.”
Get real. Get re-inspired, get out of your lazy rut and learn how to love your work again. And if you think you’re shitting that much gold that you can’t implement accessibility, it’s pretty funny that you’re willfully designing something that excludes up to 25% of the population from ever enjoying it. You are creating a negative user experience in one of the most important phases of a web project – congratulations, asshole!
Yes, yes, yes, I know I’m supposed to have grown as a person and moved away from a fire and brimstone approach to preaching the gospel of accessibility. But honestly, some people don’t deserve a nicer approach and I’m sick of whiney-ass designers on Twitter who continue to complain about it. Designers are notoriously pretentious, so a major push-back from this particular demographic of artists isn’t surprising.
This is also a warning to business owners with a designer (or, hell, developer or specialist of any kind) who has ever pushed back on accessibility optimizations — They are HURTING your business.
Who uninclusive design negatively impacts
Accessibility needs to be considered from square one to create a good user experience for EVERYONE. While in reality, that means within project utero, many consider the design phase “Phase 1.” And it is a very important phase – it determines color palettes, fonts, layout, potential embeds (like social feeds), and so much more. So if you’re not considering accessibility during design, you run the risk of setting up a poor user experience that creates a runaway boulder effect for the entire project.
Quick story: My partner is obsessed with the game ARK: Survival Evolved. And he builds amazing structures in the game. Recently, he was putting together one of his most impressive builds (seriously, I’ve seen him build some incredible bases and this one was breathtaking). While giving me a tour, he showed me where the elevator was going to go but he was trying to build the rest of the structure first. The next day, I saw he’d torn down the building. When I asked him why, he said “The build didn’t accommodate the elevator shaft so I had to start over.” I couldn’t help myself; I laughed and said, “This is why you need to consider accessibility from square one.”
And you know what? It was a perfect example. He had an objectively beautiful building he had to tear apart because he was trying to retrofit a key portion of the build (the fact that it was an elevator was just too fitting). Don’t put yourself in a position of having to tear down your beautiful build because you didn’t make room for the elevator.
Disabled people aren’t in my demographic
I think everyone in the accessibility community has heard this one: “Disabled people aren’t in my demographic.” What a silly excuse.
I think when people say “disability,” they exclusively think of the big obvious ones: fully blind, fully deaf, one or both arms amputated, or a severe cognitive disability like down syndrome or low-functioning autism. When in reality, disabilities range from yes, those things, but also to the less thought about ones like glasses and carpel tunnel. So could you honestly say to yourself not a single person in your demographic even wears glasses?
Disabilities come in many shapes and sizes. And accessibility not only tries to account for these people but helps future-proof your business (after all, just because person doesn’t have a disability today doesn’t mean they won’t tomorrow). And since accessibility is primarily best-practice development, you’re improving user experience for EVERYONE by creating a dependable environment that limits frustration a user may experience on a website.
“Disabled people aren’t in my…” let me just stop you right there. Yes, yes they are. Stop making assumptions. If a person who is blind can go hunting (yes, blind people go hunting, read more about it on the American Council of the Blind), then it’s not too far of a leap to even consider that same person may be interested in buying your athleisure wear or gym equipment, reading about your organization, or try your recipes.
See, by saying “disabled people aren’t in your demographic,” you’re making an assumption about disabled people – that we are somehow incapable of participating in your business or organization. Quite frankly, it’s insulting. You’re assuming simply because we are disabled, we have nothing to offer you (including our money). You are belittling our capabilities and assuming none of us live fulfilling lives. And by making this assumption, you are losing out on billions of dollars in market-share revenue by using that as an excuse not to make your site more inclusive. It’s just bad business.
Who demographic assumptions negatively impact
By assuming who is and isn’t in your demographic, you negatively impact your own business more than any of your potential users. While yes, many want to cater to a specific group of people, by willfully excluding others you lose out on that revenue, regardless of how distant the outlier. Even a dime makes you a dime richer than not having that dime to begin with. So by refusing to make your website accessible due to the ignorant assumption you have absolutely no disabled people in your demographic, you don’t give yourself the opportunity to optimize your site in a fashion that helps ALL of your users have a better experience.
Accessibility enhancements will hurt my SEO
This one is a huge pet-peeve of mine. If you think this, or have been told this, you’re being misled. Objectively, accessibility does nothing but HELP your search engine optimization (SEO). It’s not uncommon for people to have an SEO specialist on their team. And most of these SEO specialists are great! They want to keep learning, they want to work with accessibility specialists, and they really do want to help their clients. However… Just like there are overly pretentious designers and stereotypical incel developers… there are SEO specialists out there who think they’re the Jimi Hendrix of the SEO world. And they are INSUFFERABLE.
SEO specialists have become a valuable commodity for folks with an online business (especially if that business is extremely competitive). And if a website takes off, much of the time the SEO specialist associated with the site will be highly sought after (which negates the effort and value of the actual site owner – good content or products shouldn’t be depreciated). And man, a lot of these ones turn into straight-up jackasses that make it impossible to work with a client as an alternative specialist.
I’ve made suggestions to a client to optimize accessibility and have had those suggestions disregarded because “it’s not good for SEO.” There are times I have suggested sacrificing an SEO loophole to make a site more accessible (loopholes are basically used to trick search engine crawlers by either misrepresenting content (think of it as crawler clickbait) or taking advantage of a setting that usually sacrifices user experience and they’re constantly being patched). And many folks tend to be more concerned about their SEO than whether or not some people can even use their site, so if their specialist says “No,” it chills them to the bone.
Am I bitter? You’re goddamn right I’m bitter. The amount of times I’ve watched “rockstar” SEO specialists mislead their clients out of pride (and/or maybe some form of territorialism that requires they piss all over them to claim them as their own) is nauseating. And there’s never anything I can do about it because the client will generally trust their smug SEO specialist 150% more than they trust the new kids on the block (and accessibility, aside from the lawsuit panic, is still very much a new thing in the eyes of online business owners).
This is not a vendetta aginst SEO specialists. Like a said… there are a lot of really great SEO specialists out there – most of them are! But if you are reading this and you’re an online business owner and notice outside consultants other than your SEO specialist aren’t sticking around too long, you may have a snake on your back whispering sweet nothings into your ear while hissing at everyone else.
EDUCATE YOURSELF!
I tell all of my clients when I see warning signs that their SEO specialist is getting territorial and unwilling to work with me. A lack of education is what causes fear-mongering to begin with. Just because there are SEO and accessibility specialists doesn’t mean these subjects can’t be learned by just anyone. Anyone can watch a few videos, read a few articles, and talk to enough people to at least gain a basic knowledge of either of these subjects – enough to know if someone could be harming your business. Which I say not to devalue specialists out there (they have knowledge and experience that spans far beyond a few minutes of Googling). But information is still available to you, the client, that will allow you to make educated business decisions.
My complaints also include accessibility specialists. When the accessibility lawsuit panic began, suddenly every agency was an accessibility specialist. I remember receiving an audit from a client and it was clear to me (someone who has dedicated thousands of hours to learning and practicing accessibility) all the agency did was run an automated scan on the website. This PISSED me off because it hurt the accessibility cause and misled the client. Their advice would have hurt and hindered people with disability – and really, don’t mess with us right now. We’re fed up and tired of being constantly underestimated and disregarded and you don’t want to be in our crosshairs.
Signs your consultant may be hurting more than helping
These signs apply to more than your SEO specialist – they apply to any consultant or specialist you regularly work with who has been part of your online business.
- You’ve gone through a lot of other consultants. This could be a sign that your primary consultant is driving them away or making it difficult to work with you.
- Your consultant refuses to work with the new consultants directly. In my experience, good specialists who have a meaningful role in a website (like an SEO specialist) are more than happy to be in the loop. They’ll email me directly, we discuss changes, come to agreements that are best for the client, and we talk like adults. However, the bad ones will never email me directly. It’s extremely sketchy and the client has to play this in between game of telephone. And based on what the client will tell me, I know that the consultant is telling them bullshit and keeping me out of the loop keeps them from being held accountable. This is also bad practice – as a consultant who is being paid to perform a duty, it’s their JOB to be in the loop when major changes are in the works. To willfully be left out of the loop means they aren’t actually aware of what’s going on so their advice will be completely out of context, all because they’re too self-important to be bothered with such things (or just simply being petty). It’s also a manipulation tactic. By cornering you (the client) and dumping information on you that may scare or confuse you, you’re more likely to disengage with the new consultant. It’s really no different than Pickup Artist techniques.
- You’re constantly getting conflicting advice. This isn’t uncommon at all. But if outside consultants continue to tell you one thing while your primary consultant tells you another, it’s time for you to do your own research or consider your primary consultant may have an ulterior motive.
- Your primary consultant isn’t staying in their lane. If you start considering other specialists for tasks you didn’t hire your primary consultant for and suddenly they’re an expert in that field, this is a huge red flag. I’m not saying one can’t be both an SEO specialist and an accessibility specialist (as I stated earlier, anyone can learn this stuff), but when it comes at a convenient time it’s a clear sign your primary consult is being territorial and may hinder your pursuit to better your business. Specialists exist for a reason – they focus all of their energy on being an expert in one specific field. So if your SEO specialist is suddenly also an expert on accessibility, this is not the wonderful convenience you may think it is. And in all likelihood, their expertise is just Googling answers to your accessibility questions (which is something you could do) and may even harm your business if accessibility criterion is taken out of context or misinterpreted.
- Your consultant gives you advice that directly conflicts with the advice given to another one of their clients. Another thing I tell my clients is to look through portfolios and references. One of the SEO specialists I constantly find myself conflicting with ruined a relationship I had with a client by disregarding everything I said, telling the client it would ruin their website (which terrified the client). However, in this SEO specialist’s portfolio was a very successful site that implemented ALL of the advice I was recommending. All I could assume was because they weren’t the ones to suggest it, it was bad advice. This also falls into educating yourself, and that means doing your due diligence as a client. Caveat emptor (Latin, Let the buyer beware).
Some specialists really want to help you and your business. Some are literally there for the money and recognition and have no interest in making your business both successful and inclusive. Make sure your business is backed by the right specialists. Just because accessibility specialists are the new kids on the block, doesn’t mean they aren’t knowledgeable or qualified to help your business.
Who misleading consultants negatively impacts
If you have a consultant who is pushing away other specialists, this will inevitably harm your business. By relying on someone who brands themself to be a one-person, one-stop shop, you’re negating the need for accountability which leads to potentially detrimental side-effects when there’s no one else there to say otherwise. This often leads to a poor user experience, and a poor user experience will eventually keep people from coming to your site altogether. And it doesn’t matter how good your keywords or headings are if your site is unusable.
In conclusion…
You may have noticed a trend in my “who this negatively impacts” sections of “everyone and your business.” Because that is literally what being inaccessible harms — all of your users and especially your business.
There are so many bullshit excuses for not being accessible, and that’s really all they are — excuses. For more myths (and myth debunking) visit A11yMyths.com. They have a huge array of common misconceptions when it comes to accessibility.
If you’re reading this while trying to learn about accessibility (especially if you’re on the client-end), I highly encourage you to just reach out to people in the accessibility community. Seriously, all we do is talk about accessibility and our friends and family are getting tired of it so we’re desperate to talk to new people about it. You’ll get a 10-minute crash course just by Tweeting “Hey, trying to learn about #accessibility and have some questions – anyone’s DMs open?”