The Whys and the Hows: Exploring the Increase in Digital Accessibility

Our ongoing analysis of digital accessibility data across a broad range of online retail and service categories has routinely shown an increasing trend toward ADA compliance year over year. This is confirmed by other experts and professionals within the digital accessibility industry and among organizational advocates for low-vision and blind consumers. But when you’re operating a business with an online presence, this fact alone doesn't tell enough of a useful story from a purely practical standpoint. For instance, you likely want to know why this demonstrable increase is taking place, and how best to achieve it.

In fact, from our perspective, based on long term data analytics, this trend toward ever-increasing digital accessibility is, in fact, fueled by some exceptional whys, paired with easy-to-harness hows. And understanding what this means for your online business is the roadmap you’re looking for when it comes to joining the budding digital revolution.

The Whys: Achieving Balance with Incentives and Disincentives 

When the world took a collective sigh and realized that it would have to grapple with digital accessibility across the ecommerce industry and beyond, a series of regulatory, legal, and business measures were implemented to encourage the global transition to accessibility.

Some of these measures were clearly meant to incentivize businesses to get on board. For instance, search engines began quietly working digital accessibility into their search algorithms and providing ranking boosts to websites that were ADA-compliant. 

Other measures were clearly meant to disincentivize businesses from failing to comply with ADA standards. For instance, non-compliant websites were being called out for their accessibility failures.

However, when the federal government’s role in the digital accessibility sphere was clarified, it turned out to represent an embrace of both approaches, offering one of the most consequential incentives and one of the most powerful disincentives, both backed by the kind of legal and regulatory heft that drives decision-making and shifts business plans.

Gaining Tax Breaks

Under this extraordinary tax incentive program, businesses that meet ADA compliance for digital accessibility standards can access extremely generous tax breaks. Called the Disabled Access Credit, it allows qualifying businesses (those with a maximum annual revenue of $1,000,000.00 or a maximum of 30 full-time employees) to claim a tax break in an amount equivalent to 50% of its accessibility expenditures in a given tax year within the eligible range ($250.00 minimum to a $10,250.00 maximum).

Geared toward small to mid-size businesses, this tax credit is well-within the digital accessibility expenditure needs of most online businesses. And, for businesses of this size, it marks a significant opportunity to keep your money where it belongs by investing in your own digital interface and targeted growth.

Incentive rating: 100%

Avoiding Lawsuits  

What could possibly be a stronger disincentive than the threat of a lawsuit? With federal courts increasingly recognizing the rights of low-vision and blind consumers to pursue civil lawsuits against non-ADA-compliant websites, a crop of money-hungry law firms has sprouted. While this is particularly true in certain regions of the country, which are being hit harder by lawsuits than other regions, it is still a widespread phenomenon impacting the country nationally. 

Businesses targeted by these lawsuits are forced to pay the legal costs of defending themselves through filings, depositions, motions, and more, and then also still pay to upgrade their digital accessibility interface when they lose. By doing it this way, some business owners are learning the hard way that getting out ahead of the compliance curve is the smartest use of their money. In fact, paired with the tax breaks and the other business benefits, proactive compliance far outweighs the costs of being forced into compliance.

Disincentive rating: 100% 

The Hows: Design vs Digital Auditing vs Widget Use 

When it comes to looking at the advancing trends of digital accessibility, it’s imperative to assess the best methods for achieving compliance success as well, not just the virtue of doing so. After all, the whys are only as good as the hows allow. If you don’t accomplish the goal you set out to accomplish, you won’t optimize the fruits of your labor.

For the hows, there are three avenues to digital accessibility: design and development from the outset, use of widgets and add-ons, and use of digital auditing services. Two of these options produce excellent results, including complete ADA compliance. But one of them falls woefully short, leaving online businesses no better off (or worse off) than when they started.

Design and Development

There’s no question that the very best way to achieve top-tier digital accessibility that meets ADA-compliance standards is to begin at the beginning. For any new business (or long-established business that’s new to the web space), building a cutting edge accessibility framework right into your user interface is an unbeatable approach. Over time, you can then use periodic maintenance check ups with a digital accessibility auditing service to ensure continued compliance across an evolving standard. 

Rating: Gold Standard

Widgets and Add-Ons

When your business doesn't have the luxury of starting off from the beginning with the best accessibility status, widgets and add-ons offer an enticing option for repair and improvement. In fact, the marketing of these “solutions” suggests that their purported simplicity and ease can make all of your accessibility barriers vanish like a rabbit in a magician’s hat. 

Unfortunately, the use of widgets and add-ons only offers a temporary, superficial solution by solving accessibility problems in an incremental, piece-meal way. And, in the process, frequently causing new problems by interfering with other add-ons, overlays, and tech solutions that jumble up when used simultaneously. So, your business’s digital accessibility problems don’t really disappear. They just look different than they did when you started.

Rating: Insufficient For Existing Sites

Digital Auditing Services

All of the evidence is clear- if you have an established website that needs to be assessed and rehabilitated from an accessibility standpoint, digital auditing services are the way to go.

Because of the comprehensive nature of an audit, problems are approached holistically, rather than individually. By taking this approach, the results are seamless, creating a coherent and deeply accessible user interface from homepage through site exploration and checkout. 

When using digital auditing services like those offered through AllyADA, the proof is in the page. Because we rely on an industry-best analysis using software and manual review by low-vision and blind users, we are so confident in our results that we certify them. ADA compliance is a real, tangible achievement. 

Rating: Best Option for Existing Sites

Keeping Up the Momentum

With all metrics pointing to increased accessibility compliance, it’s easy to see that the sweet spot lies at the point where the most impactful whys intersect with the most results-driven hows. Businesses that lean into that combination are primed to benefit from the new age of digital accessibility. 

Among the full package of benefits that can reasonably be expected are tax breaks, low risk of costly lawsuits and regulatory fines, higher SEO rankings, greater reach, brand loyalty, national and global compliance, and an increased customer base.

If your business is interested in learning more, reach out to one of our CPACC-certified digital accessibility specialists today. This is one trend you don’t want to miss out on!