Presenting the Case for Web Accessibility: Financial Factors

introduction - financial benefits - cost considerations

Introduction

This page describes financial factors relating to Web accessibility. It is part of a resource suite that also describes the social, technical, and legal and policy factors for consideration in presenting a case for Web accessibility.

An organization's efforts to make its Web site accessible often has a financial impact and can result in positive return on investment and cost efficiencies. However, financial costs and benefits in developing accessible Web sites apply differently to specific organizations and situations. For example, costs related to Web accessibility are often lower when building a new site than when fixing an existing site, and sometimes complex sites are less costly to fix than simple sites due to use of templates and content management systems.

In presenting a case for Web accessibility for a specific organization, the following financial factors can be customized based on how they apply to the organization's situation.

Financial Benefits

Benefits to organizations that provide accessible Web sites include financial benefits from increased Web site use and direct cost savings.

Increased Web Site Use

Web accessibility can make it easier for people to find a Web site, access it, and use it successfully, resulting in increased audience (more users) and increased effectiveness (more use). Increased site use translates into financial benefits – for example, commercial companies can make more sales, educational institutions can get more students, and non-profit organization can receive more donations and demonstrate to grantors [rather than grantees, no?] successful outreach and dissemination.

Increased market share
An accessible Web site increases potential market share as it can be used by more people, including people with disabilities, older people, people with low literacy, and people whose primary language is not the language of the site (see Social Factors). Also, customers and other users who become temporarily or permanently disabled or impaired due to accident, illness, or aging are more likely to be able to continue using a Web site if it is accessible.

Improved employee recruiting and retention
When Web use is a significant part of a job, Web pages and applications that are accessible to more people can help with employee recruiting and employee retention. Temporarily or permanently disabled employees are also more likely to be able to continue using an accessible Web site.

Decreased customer support costs
Increasingly, Web sites are used to cut costs by decreasing customer support services and letting customers complete transactions online rather than requiring personnel and paper interactions. The myriad examples of cost savings from online transactions include citizens renewing licenses online, investors trading stock online, and students registering for classes online.

The following benefits of Web accessibility can increase effectiveness and use of a Web site:

Increased findability
Accessibility techniques increase the findability of Web pages by exposing content to search engines, both internally (within a Web site) and externally (across the World Wide Web). For example:
- Some search engines use metadata to index pages (WCAG 1.0 Checkpoint x.x) [1]
- Alternative text for images is available to search engines (WCAG 1.0 Checkpoint x.x) [2]
- Some search engines give higher weight to text marked up as headings (WCAG 1.0 Checkpoint x.x) [3]

Increased potential use in more situations
Web sites that can be used by people with disabilities can more easily be used by people with situational limitations, such as in a noisy environment or with a small black-and-white display. (See Social Factors and the "Enable the Content to Work on Different Devices" section of Technical Factors.)

Increased usability
Accessible sites are generally more usable to everyone, including people with disabilities and people without disabilities. Increased usability means Web site users achieve their goals with effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction.

When users have a positive experience with a Web site, they are more likely to use the site more thoroughly, return to the site more often, and tell others about the site ("viral marketing").

Some accessibility guidelines directly increase usability, such as consistent navigation (WCAG 1.0 Checkpoint x.x), clear and understandable content (WCAG 1.0 Checkpoint x.x), clearly labeled links (WCAG 1.0 Checkpoint x.x), and good color contrast (WCAG 1.0 Checkpoint x.x). Other accessibility guidelines can indirectly increase usability, for example, by making Web pages load faster (WCAG 1.0 Checkpoint x.x).

Increased positive image
Accessible sites can lead to a positive image of an organization as having a high sense of social responsibility, This positive image can increase an organization's Web site use. [@@ link to specific relevant section in social factors, or expound on here, if not there]

Quantifying Benefits

@@ sailesh & natasha to refine based on previous version & sailesh's revision suggestions... introduce is something like, for organizations interested in doing statistical measurements, here are some things for you to consider: @@

Direct Cost Savings

In addition to the benefits from increased Web site use,many organization realize direct cost savings from efforts to improve Web accessibility.

Decreased technical costs
Many of technical aspects of Web accessibility can provide direct cost savings (see Technical Factors).

Decreased attorney expenses
Where there are laws or regulations requiring accessibility of Web sites, ensuring that sites are accessible reduces legal liability, thereby reducing expenses for attorneys (see Legal and Policy Factors).

Decreased cost of alternative format materials production and distribution
For organizations that have previously provided printed materials in alternate formats (large print, embossed braille, computer disk), an accessible Web site can reduce the need for alternate formats, thus saving production and distribution costs.

Decreased translation costs
Following accessibility guidelines for using clear and consistent language (WCAG 1.0 Checkpoint x.x), separating content from presentation (WCAG 1.0 Checkpoint x.x), and appropriate markup (WCAG 1.0 Checkpoint x.x) can reduce the cost of translating the Web site to other languages. [4]

Cost Considerations

When accessibility is incorporated from the beginning of Web site development, it is often a small percentage of the overall Web site cost. [5] Most of the costs are early investments at an organizational level, rather than repeat costs required for each individual project. There are usually few costs associated with accessibility at the project level once accessibility is integrated in Web development throughout an organization.

Initial Costs

When an organization starts incorporating accessibility, there are initial investments in acquiring knowledge, establishing processes, and increased development and testing time.

The following are common personnel-related costs associated with an initial investment in accessibility:

Providing training and skills development
Providing training and skills development includes the cost of training and time away from other work. During skills development there is initially an increase in development and testing time because using new skills is often slower. In addition to training on direct accessibility issues, organizations that move to different technologies in an effort to improve accessibility might incur training costs on the new technologies.

Hiring expertise
Many organizations starting Web accessibility hire employees or consultants with accessibility expertise.

Incorporating accessibility into procedures
Incorporating accessibility into protocols and procedures, such as quality assurance testing and usability evaluation, takes personnel time.

Assessing existing Web site accessibility
When fixing an existing site, assessing (auditing or evaluating) existing Web site accessibility is a common initial cost. The assessment cost is either a direct expense if using a service outside the organization, or a personnel cost if using internal resources. Making accessibility improvements in existing Web sites is almost always more costly in personnel time than incorporating accessibility as sites are initially developed.

Potential initial capital expenditures related to Web accessibility include:

Purchasing accessibility evaluation tools
Web accessibility evaluation tools are software that helps identify accessibility problems. While these are not a required expense, many organizations find that using accessibility evaluation tools saves time and money.

Purchasing assistive technologies
Assistive technologies, such as those listed in Alternative Web Browsing, are used by some people with disabilities to access the Web. Developers, designers, and evaluators sometime use assistive technologies throughout the development process to understand how people interact with Web pages and to test Web pages.

Upgrading technologies and tools
Sometimes organizations determine that it will be more effective and efficient to implement accessibility with different, usually newer, technologies. For example, some organizations upgrade or change to authoring tool software that better supports production of accessible Web sites. (Selecting and Using Authoring Tools for Web Accessibility includes guidance on evaluating and selecting authoring tools.)

Ongoing Costs

Added development time
Once project members get experienced with accessibility, the development time spent on accessibility decreases significantly, in some cases to none. However, additional development time may be required for some types of accessible content, such as providing captions for the audio in multimedia content.

Development costs may be directly offset in some cases by the decrease in development time from some accessibility improvements (see Financial Benefits above).

Added testing time
Organizations committed to providing usable, accessible sites will likely increase testing time. Accessibility testing activities include:
- Testing design ideas and early prototypes with assistive technologies
- Reviewing early prototypes and final Web pages for conformance to accessibility standards and guidelines
- Quality assurance testing of specific accessibility issues, such as checking for missing alternative text for images

Related Resources

@@ I think we need to have a separate page(s) that lists references and examples, such as below.

[1] @@not sure if andrew's list of references covers this too@@

[2] @@perhaps include example of page where companies name is only provided in a logo image at the top of the page. bad search engine hits! Now, add alt text to logo image and metadata, and viola, it's better.@@

[3] @@andrew's list of references@@

[4] @@maybe add examples @@ what about including multimedia from: http://www.w3.org/WAI/bcase/benefits.html#i18ncap?]

[4] Gregg Vanderheiden, Director of the Trace R&D Center, noted that, “the vast majority of all information and services on the web can be made accessible for something on the order of 0.01% to 1% of the cost of creating and providing the information or service in the first place – especially if accessibility is addressed from the beginning of development.”[ In a Proposed Addition to the Record of the House Judiciary Committee Oversight Hearing on The Applicability of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) to Private Internet Sites [www.trace.wisc.edu/docs/ada_internet_hearing/) ]

Last updated on $Date: 2003/12/02 21:34:16 $ by $Author: shawn $.
Primary editor: Shawn Lawton Henry. Previous editors: Andrew Arch, Judy Brewer, R Miguel Bermeo. This resource is under development by the active members of the Education and Outreach Working Group.

Copyright © 1994-2003 W3C (MIT, ERCIM, Keio ), All Rights Reserved. W3C liability, trademark, document use and software licensing rules apply. Your interactions with this site are in accordance with our public and Member privacy statements.