Repost from infotech.com

Accessibility goes beyond compliance.

  • Laws requiring digital accessibility are changing and differ by location.
  • You need to make sure your digital assets, products, and services (internal and external) are accessible to everyone, but getting buy-in is difficult.
  • You may not know where your gaps in understanding are because conventional thinking is driven by compliance and risk mitigation.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

  • The longer you put off accessibility, the more tech debt you accumulate and the more you risk losing access to new and existing markets. The longer you wait to adopt standards and best practices, the more interest you’ll accumulate on accessibility barriers and costs for remediation.
  • Implementing accessibility feels counterintuitive to IT departments. IT always wants to optimize and move forward, but with accessibility you may stay at one level for what feels like an uncomfortably long period. Don’t worry; building consistency and shifting culture takes time.
  • Accessibility goes beyond compliance, which should be an outcome, not the objective. With 1 billion people worldwide with some form of disability, nearly everyone likely has a connection to disability, whether it be in themselves, family, or colleagues. The market of people with disabilities has a spending power of more than $6 trillion (WAI, 2018).

 

Impact and Result

  • Take away the overwhelm that many feel when they hear “accessibility” and make the steps for your organization approachable.
  • Clearly communicate why accessibility is critical and how it supports the organization’s key objectives and initiatives.
  • Understand your current state related to accessibility and identify areas for key initiatives to become part of the IT strategic roadmap.

Read the full article at https://www.infotech.com/research/ss/the-accessibility-business-case-for-it