WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

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Re: Remediation Cost Versus Inclusive Design Cost

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From: Tim Harshbarger
Date: Sep 12, 2017 6:28AM

That is a valid statement. It might be easy enough to redirect such a statement to a more meaningful discussion.

It is cheaper to make apps insecure than it is to make them secure.
It is cheaper to do no testing than it is to do testing.
It is cheaper to provide no customer support than it is to provide customer support.
It is cheaper not to develop web or native mobile applications than it is to develop them.

Most people would disagree with the above statements. Why is that? That is because each of those things has a value beyond the doing. Testing for the sake of testing has no value. People value testing because of the value it provides afterwards.

It is very likely to be cheaper not to include any alt text than it is to write alt text for images. That is also true for every other part of design and development work--and yet we do them.

Since we agree that there is little value in doing a thing just to do it, it appears that the best way to determine whether or not we should be doing accessibility is to discuss what value accessibility has to us.

And if you can get your audience to start discussing the value of accessibility to their organization, then I think you can start having a meaningful discussion that likely will lead somewhere.

That doesn't mean they will start by agreeing with you. But if they do not agree, it helps to understand why they disagree if you have any hope of persuading them.

Just a thought.