I thought I’d try and summarise the key benefits of good web accessibility here:
The financial benefits:
- A larger potential audience
- Potential for increased sales on eCommerce sites
- Reduced site maintenance / bandwidth costs
- Return on Investment: the money invested in accessibility can be made back and more.
- There are over 10 million people with disabilities in the UK with an estimated annual spending power of £80 billion.
- Legal and General claim a 95% increase in quotes and 90% increase in life insurance sales and 50% increase in natural search engine traffic
- http://www.shaw-trust.org.uk/experts_urge_it_teachers_to_make_accessibility_a_p
The technology benefits
- Natural search engine optimisation (SEO). “Google is a blind user who reads the entire website every month then reports what it finds to millions of people” Mark Pilgrim – 2004
- Improves interoperability of the site across devices, such as different browsers, mobile devices.
The user benefits
- Improved usability
- Improves readability, quality and confidence in site content
The legal benefits
- UK law: the 1995 Disability discrimination act
- October 1999: DDA section 21 came into effect. It is unlawful to discriminate against disabled people in the way in which you provide services.
- Websites are mentioned in one of the case studies in the supporting material.