Accessibility is a market, not a checkbox

One person in six lives with a significant disability, almost every website fails basic accessibility checks, and the law now covers online shops selling into the EU. The case for fixing it is commercial as much as moral.

Accessibility is often filed under compliance: something to tick off before launch, or to worry about after a complaint. The numbers suggest it belongs in the growth plan.

A sixth of the world

The World Health Organization estimates that about 1.3 billion people experience significant disability, around 16 percent of the world's population, or one person in six. In the UK, the Click-Away Pound survey counts about 13 million people with a limiting long-term illness, impairment or disability. Its 2019 report put the spending that disabled shoppers take elsewhere when a site is hard to use at £17.1 billion, up from £11.75 billion in 2016.

Almost every site fails the basics

Each year WebAIM runs automated checks on the home pages of the top million websites. In its 2026 analysis, 95.9 percent had detectable failures against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, with an average of 56.1 errors per page. The commonest problems are not exotic: low-contrast text on 83.9 percent of pages, images without alternative text on 53.1 percent, form fields without labels on 51 percent, and empty links and buttons on 46.3 and 30.6 percent.

Automated tools only catch part of the problem, so the real picture is worse. But it also means the most common failures are cheap to fix.

The law has caught up

The European Accessibility Act applies from 28 June 2025. It covers e-commerce services, meaning websites and apps through which people buy at a distance, alongside banking, passenger transport services, e-books and more. Microenterprises providing services are exempt from its accessibility requirements. Businesses that sell to consumers in the EU, wherever they are based, should check where they stand.

Where to start

• Fix contrast, alternative text and form labels first. They are the commonest failures and the quickest wins.
• Make every action reachable by keyboard, with a visible focus state.
• Use real headings and buttons rather than styled boxes, so assistive technology can make sense of the page.
• Test with a screen reader, and with people who use one, not only with an automated checker.
• Build it into the design system, so new pages are accessible by default.

An accessible site is easier for everyone: clearer text, simpler forms, fewer dead ends. The people who need it most are simply the first to leave when it is missing.