Why digital accessibility matters

Accessibility is usually framed as a legal requirement. It is one. But the organizations that do it well see it differently: as reaching more people, with better products, at lower risk.

It’s about a lot of people

• More than 1 in 4 US adults — 28.7% — report a disability, according to the CDC. Mobility, cognition, hearing and vision disabilities are among the most common.
• About 1.3 billion people worldwide experience significant disability, roughly one in six, according to the World Health Organization.
• America is aging. The US Census Bureau projects that by 2034, adults 65 and older will outnumber children for the first time. Vision, hearing, dexterity and memory change with age; your customers are getting older with you.

Behind the numbers are ordinary tasks: paying a water bill, booking a vaccine, applying for a job, reading a child’s school newsletter, refilling a prescription. When a website or PDF doesn’t work with a screen reader or keyboard, those tasks become impossible — or depend on someone else’s help.

Disability is often temporary or situational

Accessibility helps far more people than those with permanent disabilities:

• a broken wrist (temporary) — or holding a baby (situational) — means one-handed browsing;
• an ear infection, or a noisy train, means relying on captions;
• glare on a phone screen makes low-contrast text unreadable;
• a concussion, fatigue or a second language makes complicated forms harder.

Designers call this the curb-cut effect: curb cuts were made for wheelchair users, and now parents with strollers, travelers with luggage and delivery workers use them every day. Captions, clear layouts, readable text and keyboard shortcuts work the same way.

It’s good business

• Spending power. The American Institutes for Research estimated that working-age Americans with disabilities have about $490 billion in disposable income.
• Customers leave inaccessible sites. In the UK’s Click-Away Pound survey, a large majority of disabled shoppers said they abandon websites that are hard to use — and rarely tell the business why.
• Families and friends follow. People choose restaurants, banks and stores that work for everyone in their group.
• Procurement. Governments, universities and large enterprises increasingly require an ACR before they buy.
• Better products. Accessible sites are generally cleaner, faster, easier to maintain and more search-friendly.

It’s the law — and enforcement is rising

Federal website accessibility lawsuits rose 27% in 2025 to 3,117. State and local governments face firm ADA Title II deadlines in 2027 and 2028; healthcare organizations face Section 504 deadlines. Companies selling into Europe are already subject to the European Accessibility Act. See lawsuits and penalties.

It’s cheaper to build it in

Accessibility added at design and development time costs a fraction of a retrofit — and a retrofit costs a fraction of a lawsuit plus a court-ordered retrofit on a deadline. Read the cost of inaccessibility.

Where to start

1. Run our 44-point checklist on your most important pages.
2. Spend 30 minutes with a screen reader.
3. Fix your top user journeys first.
4. Make accessibility part of how you design, build, write and buy — not a one-off project.