In digital design, accessibility has often been treated as an afterthought. Many teams focus on visual polish or adding new features, considering accessibility only if time and resources allow it. Now, the accessibility of user experiences is becoming an increasingly important foundation of UX design practice because of legal accessibility requirements and a growing awareness of how exclusion affects real people.
But the push for accessibility has been anything but smooth. In 2025, WebAIM reviewed one million Web pages and found that 94.8% contained detectable Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 errors. This indicates that, while awareness of accessibility has increased, most digital experiences still fail to meet even basic standards. Thus, real users are still encountering barriers that prevent them from participating freely online.
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What does designing responsibly mean? How can digital products serve the widest range of people without compromises? In this article, I’ll look at the forces driving UX accessibility from being merely a secondary concern to becoming a central value of UX design, and why this matters for the future of design.
Increasing Legal and Regulatory Pressure
People often consider accessibility as a matter of good UX design. But now, it’s also increasingly a matter of law. Around the world, governments are introducing or expanding legislation that requires digital products and services to meet established UX accessibility standards.
Advances in Global Legislation
While different regions are moving at different speeds, the trajectory is unmistakable. Here are some examples:
United States—Courts have interpreted the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) as covering Web sites and apps, even though the law predates the Internet.
European Union—The European Accessibility Act (EAA) establishes rules for digital goods and services, with enforcement beginning in 2025.
Canada—The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) requires organizations of various sizes to meet accessibility standards across physical and digital environments.
Many court cases demonstrate the application of these laws in practice. For example, as shown in Figure 1, a blind consumer sued Domino’s Pizza because he was unable to order using the company’s Web site or app. Domino’s argued that the ADA didn’t apply to digital platforms, but the courts disagreed. When the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the company’s appeal, their decision confirmed that digital services must provide accessible experiences.
Figure 1—A Supreme Court decision for accessibility
Organizations that ignore accessibility face consequences on the following fronts:
financial—Lawsuits often result in settlements, penalties, and substantial legal costs.
legal—High-profile cases call attention to exclusion and erode public trust.
operational—Procurement processes increasingly require accessibility audits and conformance checks before awarding contracts.
These developments have placed accessibility at the center of digital practice. Laws require accessible design, and they hold organizations accountable when they fall short.
Improving the Overall User Experience Through Accessibility
It’s tempting to think of accessibility as something that benefits only a specific group of users. However, in practice, the improvements that come with accessible design raise the quality of the user experience for everyone. Various techniques that are associated with Web accessibility make user interfaces easier to use. Examples include the following:
Keyboard accessible navigation that supports users with motor impairments also helps power users move through content more efficiently.
Improved color contrast assists users with visual impairments or color-deficient vision, while also making content more legible outdoors in bright light for all users.
Alternative text for images provides information for screen readers and also benefits users when images fail to load.
Captions for videos assist people who are deaf or hard of hearing. They also support comprehension in noisy environments and improve indexing for search systems.
Responsive design makes sites usable on a wide range of devices, accommodating everything from large desktop monitors to small mobile-screen sizes.
Shifting User Expectations
Beyond legal frameworks, cultural expectations also influence UX accessibility. Younger generations in particular expect organizations to act inclusively.
A 2024 report by Acquia states that 67% of Gen Z and 66% of Millennials are more likely than older generations to consider switching to a competitor if they consistently face accessibility challenges with a brand’s digital platforms.
This is not surprising because Gen Z and Millennials have grown up in a world where diversity and fair representation are central concerns, and they often extend these expectations to the digital products they use. Therefore, these expectations apply to the tools employees use every day.
Employee apps embed inclusive design by offering multilingual communication, mobile access for front-line teams, and simple, easy-to-use user interfaces. For example, Blink supports screen readers and keyboard navigation to help visually impaired users navigate content effortlessly. Its text resizing options and high-contrast visual modes improve legibility, especially in low-light environments.
Accessibility features such as the ability to manage entire workflows just using keyboard navigation help companies stay compliant with WCAG 2.2 standards while making sure every employee can engage meaningfully with essential information, regardless of their role or ability.
Driving Better Business Outcomes Through Accessible Design
When organizations commit to following Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, they often discover that benefits reach far beyond compliance. Inclusive design tends to make products more usable for everyone, which in turn improves user satisfaction and engagement. Plus, search engines reward accessible practices because alt text, semantic structure, and responsive layouts improve indexing and SEO rankings.
Research continues to demonstrate a link between accessibility and user retention. Users who feel excluded quickly abandon products, while those who find tools to be inclusive tend to remain loyal. Accessibility is, therefore, not only a matter of social responsibility but also of business sustainability.
Accessibility has evolved from a nice-to-have feature to being compliance essential. Platforms such as Dynamics 365 Customer Insights are supporting this shift by helping businesses better understand the diverse needs of their customer base.
By unifying and analyzing data across touchpoints, companies can identify patterns—for example, customers’ abandoning processes because of hard-to-navigate user interfaces, which could signal accessibility barriers. This insight allows businesses to prioritize improvements that not only meet compliance standards but also create a more inclusive experience for all users, strengthening brand trust and loyalty.
Easier Implementation of Accessibility
Not long ago, implementing accessibility often felt overwhelming to UX design and development teams. Today, however, a wide range of tools and frameworks are making it easier to integrate accessibility into everyday practice. For example:
Accessibility-testing tools such as contrast checkers and automated scanners can flag potential accessibility issues early in the design process, helping teams to correct barriers before reaching production.
Accessible design systems such as Material UI and Bootstrap include accessible components by default, reducing the need for custom solutions.
Companies can integrate accessibility checks directly into existing workflows by using plugins for common platforms such as WordPress for content management and Figma for design.
These resources transform accessibility from a specialized task into a routine part of digital design. Instead of asking teams to reinvent their processes, these tools work across products and Web sites.
Accessibility Testing That Mirrors Code-Security Practices
In the same way developers now rely on code-security tools to automatically scan for vulnerabilities and enforce compliance with standards such as Open Worldwide Application Security Project (OWASP), accessibility-testing tools help identify barriers and ensure conformance with WCAG guidelines. Both are about embedding compliance into the development workflow, catching issues early, and reducing the risk of needing costly fixes or contending with lawsuits later. This has made accessibility adoption easier because teams that are already familiar with secure-coding tools can integrate accessibility checks into their continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines with little friction.
Accessibility Culture Is Becoming the Industry Standard
The conversation around accessibility is also changing within organizations. Accessibility in UX design is becoming part of the way teams set goals, measure outcomes, and evaluate success. One sign of this is how accessibility now appears in product roadmaps and key performance indicators (KPIs). Teams track accessibility alongside other key metrics, including performance, engagement, and feature adoption. By including accessibility as a measure of progress, organizations are showing that accessibility is a quality they want to nurture throughout the design and development process.
Champions of accessibility within organizations help maintain a visible accessibility culture. They often work in roles such as Web-site design, engineering, or user research, but share a commitment to advocating for inclusive practices. They run workshops, flag gaps in projects, and encourage their peers to consider a wider range of users. Within some companies, these champions formalize their work through accessibility guilds or task forces, creating cross-functional communities that sustain the momentum of the practice.
Research practices have also expanded to treat UX accessibility as a performance metric. Instead of testing only with typical users, studies now include people with disabilities and those experiencing situational challenges such as trying to complete tasks in low light or with one hand otherwise occupied. This broader lens reveals barriers that might otherwise remain hidden, while also producing insights that improve visibility for all.
Conclusion
Legal frameworks, user expectations, and business priorities have all contributed to the accelerated role of accessibility in Web-site design. Legal and regulatory frameworks now hold organizations accountable for creating accessible products and Web sites. Users, especially those belonging to younger generations, expect products and workplaces to be inclusive.
Accessible design not only improves the user experience for people with disabilities but also benefits all users by providing clearer navigation elements, enhanced usability, and more flexible interaction methods.
Businesses that prioritize accessibility often see gains in customer satisfaction, retention, and trust. Tools, frameworks, and cultural shifts within organizations have also made accessibility easier to achieve and sustain than ever before. All in all, accessibility is a key component of what defines responsible, future-ready UX design. Today, investing in accessible design is the bare minimum necessary to meet compliance requirements.
Embrace accessibility fully to demonstrate social responsibility, strengthen brand loyalty, and ensure your products remain relevant and usable as assistive technology, regulations, and user expectations continue to evolve. Most importantly, champion accessibility to support inclusion and deliver better experiences for every user.
Kelly Moser is co-founder and editor at Home & Jet, a digital magazine for the modern era. Plus, as Content Manager at Login Lockdown, she covers the latest trends in technology, business, and security. She’s also Senior SEO Writer & Strategist at uSERP. Kelly is an expert in freelance writing and content marketing for software as a service (SaaS), Fintech, and ecommerce startups. Kelly earned a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, Finance, from University of Denver. Read More
