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Developing a Web Accessibility Business Case for Your Organization:
Overview
[DRAFT revision incorporating WCAG 2.0 and Older Users]
Editors Draft: 9 December 2008 [changelog]
Status: This document is a draft and should not be referenced or quoted under any circumstances. Please send comments to public-comments-wai-age@w3.org (a publicly archived list).
Note: Additions below are shown with blue highlighting within square brackets "[addition]" and deletions are shown with orange highlighting and strike-through within braces or curly brackets "{deletion}". end of note
Page Contents
Introduction
[In most parts of the world the web is an essential resource for many aspects of life for most people:] {The Web is an increasingly important resource in many aspects of life:} education, employment, government, commerce, health care, recreation, [social interaction] and more. The Web is used for receiving information as well as providing information and interacting with society. Therefore, it is essential that the Web be accessible in order to provide equal access and equal opportunity to people with disabilities. [Web accessibility is a basic human right as recognised recently by the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities]. An accessible Web also benefits others, including older people with changing abilities due to ageing.
[An accessible Web also has many business benefits for organisations. Some of these benefits might be realized through customer loyalty, improved findability and reduced legal risk. Other benefits might be realised through retention or attraction of older employees or the demonstration of corporate social responsibility.]
There are initial costs for organizations implementing Web accessibility; however, the initial costs are often offset by a full return on investment. In order to be willing to invest the initial costs, many organizations need to understand the social, technical, and financial benefits of Web accessibility and the expectations of the returns throughout the organization. The justification to commit resources to a project is often called a "business case". Business cases usually document an analysis of the project's value in meeting the organization's objectives, the cost-benefit analysis, and the expected outcomes.
[How to use this document]
This page is the first in a series of five pages covering the business case for Web accessibility. The five pages, called a "resource suite", are designed to help develop a customized business case for Web accessibility for a specific organization. The resource suite presents many different aspects of Web accessibility and includes guidance on incorporating these aspects into a specific organization's business case. [Users of the document are encouraged to draw relevant material from across all the pages to build their own business case for Web accessibility.]
[Copyright and reuse]
The information in this resource suite may be used or adapted for different organizations, according to the copyright and document use policies of W3C. This document should be referenced as:
Developing a Web Accessibility Business Case for Your Organization,S.L. Henry [and A.M.J. Arch], eds. World Wide Web Consortium (MIT, ERCIM, Keio), {August 2005} [November 2008]. http://www.w3.org/WAI/bcase/
Factors in a Business Case for Web Accessibility
This resource suite presents the [different] aspects of the business case for Web accessibility in the following pages:
- Social Factors addresses the role of Web accessibility in equal opportunity for people with disabilities; the overlap with digital divide issues; and benefits to people without disabilities, including older people, people with low literacy and people not fluent in the language, people with low bandwidth connections to the Internet, {and} [people using] older technologies, and new and infrequent Web users.
- Technical Factors addresses interoperability, quality, reducing site development and maintenance time, reducing server load, enabling content on different configurations, and being prepared for advanced Web technologies.
- Financial Factors addresses financial benefits from increased Web site use and direct cost savings, and cost considerations including initial {costs} and on-going costs.
- Legal and Policy Factors addresses requirements for Web accessibility from governments and other organizations in the form of laws, policies, regulations, standards, guidelines, directives, communications, orders, or other types of documents.
Developing a Customized Business Case
An effective business case focuses on the organization's objectives and motivations. Certain aspects of the value and outcomes of Web accessibility {are} [will be] more important to one organization than another, based on its particular situation. For example, one organization's motivation might be to demonstrate social responsibility by being inclusive of people with disabilities, while another organization's primary motivation might be technical quality and meeting international standards.
Just as organizations' objectives and motivations are different, their business cases for Web accessibility {are somewhat} [will be] different. A customized business case for a specific organization will have different content and style, and incorporate different aspects with different emphasis, focused on [the requirements of] that particular organization.
To help guide development of a customized business case, the Social Factors, Technical Factors, Financial Factors, and Legal and Policy Factors pages each start with questions to help identify how the factors apply to a specific organization.
Examples of How Factors Differ Across Environments
Examples of different approaches to customizing a business case are provided below.
- A corporation might emphasize:
- financial gains and cost savings from increased Web use due to increased potential market share, search engine findability, and increased usability
- reducing risk of legal action resulting in high legal expenses and negative image
- the public relations benefits of demonstrating [corporate] social responsibility
- [the benefits of an inclusive workplace that supports employees with disabilities
- the increased productivity from supporting and retaining older workers and their experience]
- A government ministry or agency might emphasize:
- requirements based on laws and policies such as anti-discrimination legislation or information and communications technology policy that ensures that public services are available to all
- long-term savings from improved server performance and decreased site maintenance efforts
- [the benefits from encouraging people with disabilities and older users to interact with them online instead of using more costly in-person and paper-based services]
- An educational institution might emphasize:
- the number of students, faculty, or staff with disabilities in educational settings as a social responsibility consideration
- the benefits of Web accessibility to students with different learning styles, older computer equipment, or low bandwidth Internet connections
- [the benefits to the increasing numbers of older staff, who may be experiencing age-related impairtments]
- legal or policy requirements
- A non-governmental organization might emphasize:
- social responsibility factors, such as the organization's commitment to human rights, including the right to information
- the organization's interest in ensuring that its materials are available to all of its potential audiences
- [attracting older donors to support the organisation]
- A Web design business might emphasize:
- the competitive advantage and financial benefits of being able to meet increasing requests for accessible Web design
- the technical benefits and long term financial benefits to clients of providing sites according to Web standards
- the public relations benefits of being able to support clients' interests in demonstrating social responsibility
- [A small to medium-sized enterprise (SME) relying on e-Commerce might emphasise:
- the importance of an increasing market among older people and people with disabilities who may significantly benefit from online shopping due to limited mobility
- the increased general usability and trustworthiness of complex online shopping interfaces from improved accessibility
- the positive impact on search engine optimisation from many accessibility related improvements
- the reduced risk of legal actions and associated adverse publicity of compliance with anti-discrimination legislation]
While a specific business case for Web accessibility might emphasize a few aspects, it often is important to include other aspects as well. For example:
- an organization with a clear legal requirement for Web accessibility might still need a solid cost/benefit analysis to get management to commit sufficient resources for an effective Web accessibility program
- some commercial organizations might be more responsive to a social responsibility argument than to a standard cost/benefit analysis when committing to Web accessibility
Related Resources
Business cases are sometimes accompanied by an implementation plan describing the steps involved in making an organization's Web site accessible. A separate WAI resource suite, Implementation Plan for Web Accessibility, provides information on initial assessment, developing organizational policies, training, selecting authoring tools, and conformance evaluation.
Web Content Accessibility and Mobile Web: Making a Web Site Accessible Both for People with Disabilities and for Mobile Devices introduces how Web sites can more efficiently be designed to be accessible from a mobile device and also accessible for people with disabilities when developers understand the significant overlap between the two design goals and guidelines.
[Web Accessibility for Older Users: A Literature Review illustrates the increasing importance of older users and the overlap between the Web accessibility requirements of older people with age-related functional impairments and the provisions of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0.]