Digital content and services have become an indispensable part of everyone’s life. According to Digital 2020, a report published by We Are Social USA and Hootsuite, more than 4.5 billion people now use the internet, and 60 percent of the world’s population relies on electronic tools for work, education, shopping, banking, entertainment, healthcare, and more.

People with disabilities are no different. With nearly 1 billion people worldwide living with some form of disability, digital accessibility is more important now than ever before. It must be the top priority for all enterprises with an online presence.

However, many businesses and educational institutions continue to offer products and services that do not adhere to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.1). As a result, they limit their customer base, risk losing existing clients, and even expose themselves to lawsuits.

Now is the right time to maximize market share and minimize risk by improving the accessibility of your products.

Businesses and organizations rely on websites to showcase and deliver their products and services. Every time a user visits a website, the website owner has an opportunity to form a relationship, create a memory, and increase brand loyalty. In some ways, we misspeak when we refer to building “websites.” The real goal is to build positive web “experiences,” and web experiences are based on user need and preference.

To create the best possible experience, websites can offer a wide range of options for interacting with diverse and dynamic content. But the interactivity, complexity, and variety of this content present unique challenges for ensuring accessibility.

Designing or remediating a website for accessibility doesn’t just involve HTML tags and ARIA labels. For example, text and images must meet use-of-color and contrast requirements, and content creators must provide meaningful alt text, link labels, form field instructions, and headings. To add to the challenge, websites often link to other valuable content in different formats: audio, video, PDF, PPT, and Word. Each of these formats has unique accessibility requirements.

Auditors, designers, and remediators must have the technical knowledge, skill, and experience to handle these different content types. But, more importantly, they must understand how people want and need to use them. The goal is to create the optimal web experience for as many people as possible.