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Re: Dealing with accessibility issues in web development service contracts

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From: Jared Smith
Date: Feb 12, 2012 7:57AM

Birkir-

Trying to force accessibility into a complex project after it has been
developed can be very difficult and, as you note, expensive. We have
worked with a few clients who decided that it would be more
cost-effective to simply re-build the site with accessibility
requirements (and a new design, other web standards, best practices,
etc.), rather than continue the often never-ending battle of
implementing accessibility hacks and fixes into a site that does not
support them and that is administered by third party vendors who don't
care about or understand accessibility.

In one case a client was quoted a 7 digit number to implement
accessibility alone (which, by the way, was absurdly over-priced). The
price to rebuild the entire site with a knowledgeable vendor and also
include accessibility was only a bit more. It was an obvious decision
to start over.

Most sites only last a few years. If you're considering a significant
update or rebuild in the future, you may be better off waiting. If
not, the cost efficiency of your site updates will be proportional to
the accessibility knowledge of your vendor, so you might start with
educating them rather than asking them to implement accessibility
items they likely will not understand (but are happy to charge an
hourly rate to attempt to implement).

Jared Smith
WebAIM.org