WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

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Re: The cost of accessibility

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From: deborah.kaplan@suberic.net
Date: Oct 5, 2010 8:12AM

Tim said:

> Although maybe I should separate the development environment from the user environment.

Actually, Tim, I'm glad you didn't. The fact is, most people who
are asking about the cost of accessibility are asking about the
cost of making things accessible to their end-users, and it
doesn't even occur to them that they might have developers who
also have accessibility needs. What's the cost of
NON-accessibility? Well, for one thing, you lose the potential
productivity of your developers, designers, content providers,
etc., who either don't work for you because you don't have an
accessible environment, or work for you but do it far less
efficiently and productively.

I do understand the need to provide management with some number
for the bottom line, ultimately: "dedicate this much of the
budget to fixing discovered accessibility bugs," or some such.
But if management wants to see the real costs of
non-accessibility, I think it's valuable to point out to them
that their own employees often can't use the site/tool.

I say this from experience. I've been in meetings where
management said "Really, how many resources do you want us to
spend on what's probably a tiny percentage of our users?" And I
sat there in the meeting and said "You mean ME. You are talking
about making a tool that me, your colleague, I can't use. Not a
tiny percentage of your users; SITTING RIGHT HERE." It does make
a difference.

-deborah