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Re: The cost of accessibility

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From: Denis Boudreau
Date: Oct 5, 2010 8:30AM

Hi Tim,

On 2010-10-05, at 9:48 AM, Tim Harshbarger wrote:

> Just a suggestion, but what if you take the approach that accessibility costs should never be more than 5% of the project cost? As people gain experience that 5% cost will gain you more accessibility. It might not be perfect to begin with, but some accessibility is always better than inaccessibility.

I, for one, am perfectly comfortable with the idea that accessibility could measure up to 10, 20 or even 50% of a budget with any given team.

I've had to deal with such catastrophic situations many times in the past and I expect to do it again in the future. If those costs go through the roof, it's because the skills aren't properly integrated. It usually means training needs or at the very least, some coaching to get things right. As the techniques sink in, those costs diminish. It is our job to help these developers, authors, designers, etc. learn the skills and become more and more proficient at what they do.

I think that for most web development teams an estimate of 5 to 10% is probably more reasonable because they would still be in the process of learning the skills of the trade. But as accessibility becomes a part of the daily routine, it does come down to almost nothing.


> Of course, part of the problem is still that we keep talking about 2-5% without really discussing what kind of work that expense pays for.

For the sake of the discussion, that expense pays for anything related to making your content accessible as per WCAG 2.0.

/Denis