The real dollar cost of accessibility

Making sure our physical environment and digital assets are accessible to everyone is a goal that many agree with, but a common barrier to doing so is believing that it will be expensive:

• “It will cost too much to make things accessible.”

• “The ongoing costs will be too expensive.”

• “The return on investment won’t be worth it to make things accessible.”

• “The cost for accessibility is too high compared to how many people benefit from it.”

So, are these fears true?

A report by the Job Accommodation Network (JAN) for the Department of Labor’s Office of Disability Employment Policy in the US finally provides us with concrete answers to these concerns.

First, your prediction

Before you move on, take a moment to think about how much you think an accessibility accommodation costs. The study in question looked at the physical world, but you can consider digital accommodations too.

Write this number down, and compare it to the findings in the study.

Most accessibility accommodations cost nothing

Did you write down the number zero?

As it turns out, for the majority of companies, that’s the golden number: zero. Zero dollars to make an accessibility accommodation.

Specifically, 56% of workplace accommodations for employees costed absolutely nothing to execute.

When there is a cost, the typical cost of accommodation is $500

The survey covered over 3,000 employers, with over 1,000 companies providing information about accommodation costs. The accommodations included providing assistive technology, better climate-controlled environments or quiet spaces for employees, as well as WFH accommodation and changing meeting practices. Many of these accommodations have no costs associated with them, and it was found the median cost for an accessibility accommodation was $500.

Look at the number you wrote down. How close were you?

Costs are often one-time only

39% of employers reported that accessibility accommodation costs were not on-going. Only 5% of employers experienced on-going costs.

That means the majority of employers only spent $0-500 once in order to accommodate a disabled employee.

The cost to accommodate a disabled person is not much more than a non-disabled person

Employers make accommodations for employees all the time, like ergonomic equipment and flexible work hours. When asked the difference between paying for an accommodation for an employee with a disability and one without, the difference was $20. This means, the median accommodation for a disabled employee only costed $20 more than one without a disablility.

Making digital accommodations

While the report focused on accommodations in the physical world for employees, the findings can be related to the digital realm:

• Adjusting colours to improve the colour contrast requires minutes of a designer’s time.

• Using semantic HTML instead of improper use of ARIA is part of the problem-solving time that we already pay developers for.

• Testing with a keyboard and a screen reader will take more QA time, but not nearly as much as initially expected, especially as testers become more proficient at it.

• Many accessibility tools are free to implement and use

The reality is that we make assumptions about the dollar cost of accessibility accommodations and improvements. But when we look at it more closely - when we examine what accessibility actually takes in effort and dollars - we see that the cost is minimal to non-existent.

The cost for not accommodating accessibility needs

We’ve already talked extensively about the opportunity costs of not meeting accessibility standards. Companies that prioritize accessibility see better returns in every measurable way: increased revenue, better user experiences, fewer click-aways, reduced customer churn.

The Shift Left approach is a means to further minimize the cost of accessibility, taking this already low cost and reducing it even more.

So, what’s the cost you’re willing to spend?

Studies prove again and again that not only are accessibility accommodations not nearly as expensive as many assume them to be; it’s often too expensive not to consider accessibility.

Given everything we know about the real cost of accessibility, the question shifts: how much is enough to justify building barriers to access?