What Do You Need To Know About Digital Accessibility?

When software developers build websites, software programs, and web-based tools properly, even individuals with specific disabilities can use them. It’s precisely what digital accessibility is all about, and it can prove to be exceptionally beneficial to businesses all over the world.

When software development experts build software solutions, web-based tools, and websites properly using the right design and code, even people with specific disabilities will be able to use them. It’s precisely what digital accessibility is all about.

Then again, most of the digital products of today have many accessibility-related barriers. These obstacles prevent differently-able people from using them. When it’s an individual, a business company, or society itself — everyone will benefit from digital accessibility.

Tim Berners-Lee, the director of W3C, is the person who invented the World Wide Web. He once said something phenomenal.

“The power of the web is in its universality. It should be accessible to everyone, regardless of physical or mental disabilities.”

With time, the integration between physical and online systems keeps growing. Digital products designed by the providers of custom software development services are now powerful enough to transform the way older and younger generations convert into natives of a digitized world. Everyone, regardless of age or gender, uses digital products.

It’s one of the main reasons why experiential and digital business tactics are mandatory for brands. People consider digital mediums as a way of life instead of just things they rely on to get something done.

When the pandemic began, Amazon managed to double its profit. After witnessing the brand’s success, hundreds and thousands of small and medium businesses started shifting to the world of the web. They turned to custom software development services to build digital products they can use to cater to the requirements of their clients and customers.

If this world grows digitally, it’s safe to say that the people in it will also have to adapt to it. In such a world, only businesses that care about their customers and add value to their companies for the good of their users are the ones that’ll survive.

This value isn’t just about time or money. In a digital world, it usually boils down to accessibility. If a company focuses solely on customer experiences, it can transform the lives of its users. As already mentioned earlier, digital accessibility is beneficial to one and all.

An explanation

You’ve already encountered the phrase “digital accessibility” multiple times in this write-up. What is digital accessibility in concrete terms? The UN, as well as the providers of custom software development services, describes it as a digital product that anyone can perceive, contemplate, and navigate.

Despite being so close to perfection, the digital world isn’t accessible to everyone. People with disabilities can’t operate software programs, mobile applications, websites, or web-based tools without another person’s support.

Digital accessibility is all about getting rid of this discrimination.

The importance of accessibility

Here are a few reasons why digital accessibility is the need of the hour.

Fact one

Based on information accumulated by The World Bank, about 15% of the entire world’s population, which amounts to more than 1.3 billion individuals, suffers from some kind of disability.

Experts also believe that these disabled individuals and their families control about $8 trillion in terms of disposable income across the world. As the owner of a business, you can probably guess what an opportunity it can be for your business if you can make your digital products accessible to these folks.

Fact two

Experts from UsableNet cite the latest data available from the lawsuits on digital accessibility. Based on the information they’ve found, businesses have the chance to grow their revenue if they do everything within their power to enhance digital accessibility.

Fact three

The same data provided above shows that last year, cases against video, web, and app accessibility increased by 25%. In December, the value had increased to almost 100% compared to January. Lawsuits concerning full-fledged digital accessibility increased to 3,500 in 2020.

If you include the state and federal ADA lawsuits, you’ll realize this trend is constantly going upward.

Fact four

As opposed to 2019, accessibility lawsuits started rising again in 2020. It had crossed the 20% mark.

Fact five

WebAIM found that almost 98.1% of all homepages from one million highly recognized websites couldn’t meet the standards of legal accessibility established in 2020. It happened mainly because of the poor choice of colors, cluttered layouts, and the unavailability of text alternatives for missing images.

Fact six

Centers for disease control and prevention found that about 26% of all adults in the USA are individuals with disabilities. They account for almost a quarter of the country’s population.

Fact seven

There’s a charitable organization in the UK called Purple. They conducted research on the subject and found that about 75% of disabled individuals had to step out of a website or an online store simply because their disability prevented them from completing a transaction.

Fact eight

Another survey conducted in 2019 unearthed that about 69% of all disabled consumers on the internet would avoid clicking on websites difficult to handle. On the other hand, almost 86% of these people wouldn’t hesitate to pay more money for a product available for sale on an accessible platform.

The perks of accessibility

The pointers elucidated above clearly prove the importance of employing a custom software development company in India to build accessible digital products.

At this point, as the owner of a business, you’d definitely want to know whether it’d be beneficial for you to spend more money on making your digital products more accessible at all or not.

You’ll enjoy the following perks if you do.

No more discrimination

With every passing day, the internet and every other digital technology become more and more prevalent in the daily lives of people. As a result, it won’t be a mistake if someone says that digital product accessibility is a fundamental right for individuals suffering from disabilities.

The ADA or Americans with Disabilities Act bestows the aforementioned right upon differently-able people. They must receive the opportunity to enjoy equal access to all public services and places where public accommodation systems are available, such as theaters, restaurants, and educational establishments.

Of course, the ADA doesn’t address matters associated with web accessibility explicitly yet. Nevertheless, the legislation includes enough materials that will extend into the digital world. In multiple legal cases, the Department of Justice of the USA concluded that the unavailability of accessibility for digital products violates the ADA.

Lawsuits associated with web accessibility are constantly on the rise. Back in 2018, courts in the USA had to deal with 2,258 cases when in 2017, the number was just 814. A few high-profile cases also took place, such as the lawsuit filed against the website of the world-renowned musician Beyonce.

Catering to a larger audience

Disabilities can be of different types, such as visual, aural, cognitive, and motor. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or CDC in the USA estimates that one in four citizens of the country suffers from some kind of disability.

If you don’t ask your custom software development company in India to build something that a disabled person can operate, you’d end up making a significant mistake. In one survey conducted by an organization called Click-Away Pound, retailers in the UK had to let go of $15.5 billion in 2016.

Disabled customers couldn’t buy anything from these retailers, which, in turn, resulted in such a humungous loss. Therefore, if you choose to improve the accessibility of your digital products, your business will become much more successful and earn more recognition.

While it isn’t always possible to build something that’ll be accessible to everyone from all four corners of the world, introducing a few modifications based on common sense can do wonders for your company.

PR positivity

It’s the age of being digitally active. In such a world, consumers wish to support their favorite brands, particularly the ones that always share their ideas, values, and beliefs.

In another survey conducted by Accenture Strategy, almost 62% of all consumers were willing to buy from a brand that doesn’t hesitate to take a stand on matters affecting the world. At the same time, 47% of consumers will simply walk away from the brand if its actions or words seem disappointing. 17% won’t return ever again.

Digital product accessibility is now an important cause, specifically for individuals with disabilities and the people with love. Human rights advocates and lawyers are also bringing this matter in front of legislative bodies and commoners.

Therefore, when you become a proponent of digital accessibility, you’ll establish the foundation of a positive image for your brand. Disabled people will interact with your business positively. They’ll also recommend your company to their family members, friends, social media connections, and acquaintances.

An excellent method of generating PR positivity incorporates writing a statement on accessibility for every digital product you create for your audience. This document will express your commitment to digital accessibility and also disclose the steps you take to accommodate disabled individuals.

Also Read: Importance Of Digital Marketing In A Business

SEO improvement

A custom software development company in India, such as Moon Technolabs, can create an accessible business site for you or rebuild your existing site to enhance its accessibility. This particular feature does more than just increase the usability of your website. For instance, it can contribute to your search engine optimization efforts.

The ultimate objective of SEO is to increase traffic to the content you release by augmenting the rank of your website in Google and other similar search engines. It may seem weird, but the truth is that even SEO specialists don’t know how a webpage gets ranked in search engines.

However, they can incorporate the best SEO practices to make your website stand out from the crowd. In some instances, the purposes of SEO and web accessibility are the same. When you build a site with a clean interface and simple navigation features, you’ll reduce the overall bounce rate significantly.

Usability enhancement

You already know that there’s a connection between SEO and web accessibility. Similarly, usability shares a direct connection with digital product accessibility.

Accessibility is all about increasing the usability of products, environments, and services among disabled individuals. To that end, accessibility may seem like an overlapping concept or sub-case of usability. It aims to enhance the usability and user experience of a product or service.

It’s another one of the benefits of custom software development. Now, as an example, you should take the standard of WCAG. Web accessibility standards, such as this one, force every site to be navigable and usable with just the keyboard of a computer.

Naturally, if a disabled person can’t operate the mouse, he/she would be able to use the keyboard to explore the website. Of course, improving website navigability to such an extent will benefit other people too.

If you have to make your website navigable with just a keyboard, you have to arrange the navigational elements in a stringent hierarchy. In doing so, you’ll make it easier for everyone to locate the content they’re looking for.

There are several other recommendations for enhancing accessibility. For instance, alternative text for objects and images on a website can be of use to individuals with slow web connections and contemplate the content’s purpose before it gets loaded.

If there’s a glossary containing definitions of rare words, acronyms, and technical terms, it would be useful to folks who don’t speak English or suffer from cognitive disabilities.

Better code quality

Another one of the benefits of custom software development for accessibility is the quality of code written by the developers. Whether it’s a website, an app for mobile devices, or a piece of software, if developers create it based on accessibility, it will have a better codebase.

The presence of cleaner and better code for a digital product can be exceptionally advantageous. The user interface will be much better, and the website, software, web tool, or app will have fewer bugs. They’ll also load faster.

You should consider the accessibility feature as an investment in codebase and the future of your organization.

Final considerations

Most folks believe that the benefits of custom software development for accessibility will only make things better for disabled people. It’s one of the most prominent myths plaguing the feature of accessibility.

It should be clear to you, if you’ve been going through this write-up from the beginning, that the perks of accessibility include enhancing your customer base, increasing brand visibility, improving rankings on search engines, and making general usability augmentations.

Everything described above can be profoundly beneficial to your organization. Now, you’re probably wondering where you should start. In that regard, this particular resource should be of use to you.

Source : https://www.moontechnolabs.com/blog/what-do-you-need-to-know-about-digital-accessibility/