Building Accessible Websites From Scratch Part One for Business Owners

Join Natalie MacLees and Natalie Garza on the 15th episode of the AAArdvark Accessibility Podcast as they discuss the importance of web accessibility for website owners. Learn why it’s crucial to consider accessibility from the beginning of a website project, the benefits of an accessible website, and practical tips on choosing the right tools and expertise.

Natalie Garza: Hello, everybody, and welcome to the 15th episode of the AAArdvark Accessibility Podcast. My name is Natalie G, and I’m an accessibility novice, and with us today is:

Natalie MacLees: Natalie Mac, accessibility expert. (Full name is Natalie MacLees, and her nickname is Natalie Mac!)

Natalie Garza: And, in today’s episode, we are going to talk about web accessibility when building websites from scratch. So we ended up making this a two-parter. This one is gonna be geared towards website owners,

(Natalie Garza accidentally set off the built-in Apple Confetti reaction.)

Natalie MacLees: We are really excited about that.

Natalie Garza: Website owners! And the next part is gonna be geared towards developers and agencies. So to kick us off, Natalie, why is it important to build a website to be accessible from scratch?

Natalie MacLees: Oh, it’s your favorite metaphor, Natalie, from Lainey Feingold, that you cannot put the chocolate chips on the cookie after it’s baked. So if you try to build your website and then come back and try to make it accessible, it’s gonna be a nightmare. It’s not gonna be fun, and it’s probably going to at least double the cost of your website.

Because going back to a website that was built without accessibility in mind and trying to make it accessible is very difficult and very time consuming, and it could double or even triple the cost of having the website built to begin with. If you instead build an accessible website from the very, very beginning, I would say you’re probably looking at maybe about 20% more cost to have an accessible website versus an inaccessible one.

Natalie Garza: Yeah, so for one, it’s very cost-effective. But there are other benefits too.

Natalie MacLees: There’s benefits to having an accessible website. They’re more SEO friendly and who doesn’t want their site to be found in search engines? I mean, you put it online because you wanted people to find it, presumably. You can avoid legal risks, so you won’t be getting demand letters. Or if you do get a demand letter, you’ll have proof that you have been working on the accessibility of your website and it has been improving.

The overall user experience of an accessible website tends to be better. They tend to be more performant.

Having an accessible website could also increase your potential audience by up to 20% because there are between one in five and one in four, Americans who are people with disabilities. So you’re gonna capture even more of the market and potentially increase your revenue by up to 20%.

So, if your website is accessible, it just means more people can interact with it, more people can understand it, can get to all the parts of your website that you want them to interact with, like your contact forms, your checkout pages, all that good stuff.

They can get to all the good stuff and they can get to it no matter what device they happen to be using. If they’re out and about and trying to buy something from your website on their phone, it’s gonna work. If they’re at home on their laptop or their tablet, it’s...