Design agency Inviqa share their report, Digital Accessibility: Achieving Great CX For All.

The report is based on a poll of 100 UK digital professionals. The findings show which organisational barriers mean that businesses often neglect accessibility.

Customer experience and the case for accessibility

The report shows web accessibility is essential for a great Customer Experience (CX). By prioritising accessibility, organisations create better products and experiences for all their customers.

The appreciation that accessible products are better products will be key to helping more brands design inclusively and ensure a great customer experience for everyone alike.

Olga Bulyina, senior UX consultant at Inviqa

About the report

The digital agency Inviqa developed the report to:

  • identify barriers to improving digital accessibility
  • explore how organisations deal with those barriers
  • help organisations understand the benefits of inclusive digital design

Inviqa ran a multiple-choice online survey in February 2020. The findings are based on the responses of more than 100 UK digital professionals.

The biggest groups surveyed worked in:

  • digital design and development (51%)
  • marketing (9%)
  • eCommerce (7%)

Main findings

Infographic reads "85% of brands agree that businesses lose out when they don't cater to digital access needs" and brands that are not designing inclusive products miss out on a £274 billion opportunity, with $6.9 billion lost to accessible ecommerce competitors annually.

  • 85% of organisations agree: businesses lose out when they do not meet digital access needs.
  • Financially, they are missing out on a £274 billion opportunity.
  • The biggest barrier to accessibility is a lack of clear ownership in the organisation (43%).
  • Only 4% of respondents strongly agree that they currently meet accessibility guidelines. But 44% strongly agree or agree that they will meet them in the next 12 months.
  • Currently, 65% of organisations have not tested their digital accessibility with real customers.
  • The biggest motivation for accessibility is making digital products easier to use for everyone (52%). The second is the legal reasons (27%).

‘Organisations are starting to understand the universal usability benefits of accessibility’, says Olena Bulygina, senior UX consultant at Inviqa.

Main barriers within organisations

Table reveals the biggest barriers to accessibility, according to Inviqa. At the top is "No clear ownership within the organisation" with 43% of respondents suggesting this is the main reason accessibility is overlooked. Second is organisations "lacking the right people or skills".

What are the biggest barriers to accessibility?

  1. “No clear ownership within the organisation” 43%
  2. “Lacking the right people or skills” 16%
  3. “Finding it hard to justify the spend” 11%
  4. “Not sure what accessibility really means” 10%
  5. “Senior leadership not convinced of the benefits” 6%
  6. “Other” 15%

Lack of understanding about access needs

22% of the population is disabled. But there is a lack of knowledge about how to design for disability.

73% of respondents did not know how much of the UK population has a condition or impairment. 81% of respondents did not know the spending power of disabled people in the UK (£274 billion).

The report also showed a lack of awareness about what web accessibility is, and who benefits from it.

Structural barriers within the organisation

The report highlights that the main barriers to change are a lack of clear:

  • ownership
  • structure
  • governance

Digital accessibility should be everyone’s responsibility. But only 31% of respondents agree that it’s seen as everyone’s responsibility in their organisation. And only 27% felt that digital accessibility has clear ownership within the business.

The continuation of accessibility has been overlooked. There is no clear senior management involvement…and people leaving the organisation means we have lost the ability to address accessibility.

Great CX For All survey participant

Accessibility often considered an afterthought

The findings show that accessibility is an afterthought. It is not considered at the start of creating a digital product.

Infographic reads "65% of brands have not tested their sites and apps with customers with access needs"

Only 31% of organisations consider accessibility when they research customers’ needs. And only 19% consider accessibility when they decide what digital products to build.

The efforts towards accessibility seem to be mostly driven by:

  • design teams: 50% of organisations consider accessibility at the design stage
  • development teams: 54% of organisations consider accessibility when they are building the product

When organisations invest in inclusive practices, they improve their offer. We hope this research inspires more teams to invest in accessibility.

To learn more and get the complete findings:

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