How accessible product design and development can improve your conversion

Improved usability for all
A common misconception is that accessibility helps only people with disabilities. Many accessibility features, like screen zooming, captions, and autocorrect, improve the experience for everyone. They have become a standard for all of us, providing a better user experience to everyone. And don’t we all benefit from having consistent layout and clear navigation?

Increased sales
When more people can use your product, it naturally creates more sales opportunities. In North America, there's an annual market of $10.3 billion represented by people who are blind, who often use assistive technologies like screen readers to navigate in the Web. If these individuals cannot access and use your product, they will most likely go elsewhere. This can lead companies to lose around $6.9 billion a year to their competitors with more accessible websites (2).

SEO boost
Offering text alternatives for visual content not only makes your site more accessible for users using screen readers but also positively impacts your search engine optimization. Better structured page content with descriptive headings and links make you rank higher in search results.

Increased performance through testing
By testing your product’s accessibility early and often, you will also uncover technical performance improvements. Automated accessibility tools have improved a lot and they help you detect issues in seconds. You’ll be able to reduce your page loading time and bandwidth consumption with simple solutions, like semantic HTML, text alternatives and compressed media.

Enhanced brand image
You can improve your brand image by showcasing your commitment to accessibility, a vital social responsibility component. This can build trust and loyalty among your customers and clients, especially considering how sustainability is a growing value for individuals and businesses. Also, when more people can apply and work within an inclusive company, accessibility can boost your employer attractiveness.

Reduced development costs
As human rights regulations become more and more rigid, making changes becomes inevitable – unless you already belong to that 4% of forerunners (congrats!). This makes accessibility also a smart financial move. Building accessible design helps developers create cleaner code automatically. This speeds up the development process and reduces accessibility issues that need to be fixed later on. Similarly, it makes altering code to different platforms easier and removes the need for rewriting big chunks of code.

Legal protection
Building accessible products gives you legal protection. In the US, there are roughly 9-10 thousand American with Disabilities Act (ADA) lawsuits per year (3). Similarly, the European Accessibility Act (EAA) has gotten stricter and will be enforced in June 2025. This highlights the importance of prioritizing digital accessibility to mitigate legal risks.

Privacy and security
Accessibility is a crucial part of ensuring users’ right to privacy and security, a compliance obligation that most companies already take care of. Incorporating accessibility ensures that everyone can enjoy a secure and private online experience.

Your website or product looks great. You’ve put in the effort to cater it to your target audience and aligned it with your business objectives. However, 96 % of websites are inaccessible (1). As a result, people with disabilities are denied access to a wide range of services, from healthcare systems to online shopping.

It's worth asking ourselves: how can we ensure we belong to that 4% addressing accessibility? Moreover, what advantages can we gain by offering better access and user experience to a broader audience? Based on the statistics, there's a real opportunity to foster a more inclusive digital world, and the good news is that it can significantly boost your conversion rates if you approach it right.

Now, let's focus on the numerous benefits that accessibility can bring to the table.

By embracing accessibility, you’re boosting your business, fostering positive change, and building a more equitable digital world for all.

Start small and build your base

Although learning more about accessibility legislation and standards is important, we encourage you to start with something concrete. You don’t need to have a fully-fledged inclusion strategy in place or extensive training before you begin taking action.

By starting small and exploring your organization's current approach, experience, and view on inclusive design and development, you can establish a more secure commitment to accessibility. If you want to learn more about concrete ways to implement accessibility in practice, download our eBook “How to enhance your product’s accessibility – starting right now”.

Mira Myllylä is a digital product designer based in New York. She specializes in accessibility and how to build more inclusive digital experiences. She’s been training designers, developers, and product managers on accessibility and is passionate about how to increase accessibility practices among teams.