100 points to know about...
Digital accessibility

For many, it's hard to grasp the tangible business benefits of web accessibility. A lot of the hesitation is related to whether they can calculate the return on investment (ROI) that designing for web accessibility brings. However, making your websites, apps and services accessible to all users has shown to be an opportunity to increase your profits and client base.

First, let's get a better understanding of why and how business opportunities exist here in the first place. Look no further than the explosion of consumers that has taken place in the field of e-commerce during the COVID-19 pandemic.

When we talk about e-commerce, the numbers speak for themselves:

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• E-commerce share in the global trade increased from 14 % to 17 % in 2020.
• Latin America’s online marketplace Mercado Libre sold twice as many items per day in the second quarter of 2020 compared with the same period in 2019.
• China’s online share of retail sales rose from 19.4% to 24.6% between August 2019 and August 2020.

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• African e-commerce platform Jumia reported a 50% jump in transactions during the first six months of 2020.
• In Kazakhstan, the online share of retail sales increased from 5% in 2019 to 9.4% in 2020.
• Thailand saw downloads of shopping apps jump 60% in just one week during March 2020.

How is this relevant for designing for web accessibility, you may ask?

With such an increase in web traffic, companies conducting business online need to be aware that a sizeable part of those new clients have disabilities.
In particular, people with disabilities have about $8 trillion in disposable income, which is why adapting the web to their needs should be a priority. Failing to make it so has measurable consequences: inaccessible websites and apps can lose 15-20% of potential clients.

Keep reading for a real-life example of a company that reaped the benefits of investing in web accessibility.

Case study: Legal & General Group

Legal & General Group is a financial services company that conducted an accessibility audit of its website in 2005. They were able to identify and target existing accessibility issues due to user testing with disabled people.
After completing modifications, the company developed a new website that successfully passed audits for web accessibility.

The tangible business benefits that arose from this decision are:

• Organic search traffic increased by 25% in the first 24 hours after launch, eventually growing to 50%
• Page loading time reduced by 75%
• Annual site maintenance savings reached £200,000
• Staff time spent managing content reduced from 5 days to half a day per job
• 100% return on investment (ROI) in 12 months

Yuo can learn more about this case study at: https://www.w3.org/WAI/business-case/archive/legal-and-general-case-study