13 Chapter – Return on Goodwill: Return on investment for Accessibility

Publisher Summary This chapter addresses the costs and benefits of creating accessible designs, with focus on access for people with disabilities. Web design is the running example, although the lessons apply to almost any design domain. The tradeoffs of choosing a level of effort in achieving accessibility are also discussed. If a website doesn't display correctly, it has an accessibility problem. Websites may be inaccessible because of reliability issues; they’re broken when users try to access them. Or they may be inaccessible because of lack of the necessary plug-in or because the screen isn't large enough. In this sense, an accessible Website doesn't necessarily look any different; in fact, what distinguishes accessible websites is that they actually work the way it is expected. For many, the idea of accessibility is abstract, and although designing for accessibility is perceived as a good deed, it is not clear how extensive the value might be. This chapter provides some of the most common reasons to design for accessibility, with an argument made for each reason. Of all the benefits of accessibility described so far, the most straightforward to quantify is market size, which can be done by describing audience diversity numerically. Furthermore, the process of producing an accessible website has a number of variables that significantly impact cost.