There is no competition in accessibility

By Anne-Mieke Bovelett on January 6, 2024
Status: up to date

And why this is bad news for you

Recently, on LinkedIn, I posted a conversation I had with an attendee at a large trade fair in Germany. There were many reactions, and when I checked today, it has had 1252 impressions. Some may think little of that, but to me, that is a lot! You can find the link at the end of the quote.

Anne, why do you promote your competitors? He asked. I said: Competitors? What competitors? I don’t feel we’re competitors at all. How could we be? Over 90% of the web is not fully accessible yet. There aren’t enough of us to support or teach site owners to begin with. We’re colleagues, we’re fellow accessibility advocates, we’re a relatively small group that should actually be large enough to be called a digital army.

And you, Sir, by the time you decide to make the move to have your webshop made accessible, I hope one of us has time for your project. Because there’s no AI in the world to automate that for you. The European Accessibility Act enforcement is 17 months away. And even now, you’re bleeding revenue.

Need I say more?

The post on LinkedIn

In case you didn’t get it yet… It’s time for action

Firstly, like I said on LinkedIn: you are bleeding revenue already. But secondly: the European Accessibility Act I refer to really is no joke.

For WordPress agencies

If you want to be ready for the future, make sure accessibility is part of your arsenal. Ensure the themes you build are accessibility-ready. And if you prefer to leave the theme building to others while managing enterprise size multisite projects, I recommend you take a look at Greyd,Suite. I’ve written a whole lot about them, you can find all posts in The Greyd Series. And if you would like a personal demo (no strings attached), contact me.

For companies considering a relaunch

Contact me. I’m part of the team of experts at Relaunchberatung.de. Although we currently mainly focus on the German market (our site is currently in German only), we are all fluent in English.