By Jo Larby, Accessibility Community Lead, Leighton
The overlooked link between accessibility, innovation and customer loyalty.
Accessibility is still too often treated as a late-stage fix. Something that gets bolted on after launch. A checkbox for compliance. But this mindset is increasingly risky and outdated.
With new regulation raising the bar and expectations rising, the stakes are higher than ever. But ensuring accessibility should be about more than avoiding fines. Building accessible digital products from the start leads to better outcomes across the board. It strengthens user experience, improves code quality, reduces rework and helps teams move faster.
Most importantly, it makes your product usable by more people, in more situations, which builds trust and long-term customer loyalty.
Change is coming. Ready or not?
The regulatory landscape is shifting. The European Accessibility Act (EAA) is now in effect, requiring many private sector organisations to meet clear accessibility standards across digital services. In the UK, the public sector already faces legal obligations under the Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations, with further changes expected. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) continue to shape what “good” looks like in digital products, and organisations that fall short risk legal, reputational and commercial consequences.
The risk of non-compliance is growing. Beyond legal penalties, there’s the potential for reputational damage and lost trust. Compliance should be seen as the baseline, not as the goal. Forward-thinking organisations treat accessibility as a strategic priority, not a last-minute fix.
Designing and building for all = better for everyone
Accessibility isn’t just about supporting users with disabilities. It benefits everyone. Captions help people in noisy environments. High-contrast designs improve visibility in bright sunlight. Voice control supports hands-free use. These features, originally developed with accessibility in mind, quickly become everyday essentials.
Inclusive products are often simpler, clearer and more intuitive. That’s because designing for a broader range of needs encourages teams to remove friction, focus on usability and reduce complexity. The result is a better experience for everyone.
Customers notice when a product just works. It builds trust. It shows that a business has thought about real people in real-world contexts, and that builds loyalty.
From culture to code
Accessibility isn’t one person’s job. It’s a shared responsibility. When it’s built into the culture of the business, not just the code, the results are stronger across the board.
Embedding accessibility starts at the design stage and should include users with lived experience where possible. That means using semantic structure to support screen readers, ensuring colour contrast meets readability standards, and enabling full keyboard navigation. In front-end development, it continues with meaningful ARIA roles, logical tab order, and a mindset of progressive enhancement.
Testing also plays a critical role. Automated checks catch common issues early, while manual testing ensures the experience works for real users, not just systems.
Cross-functional ownership is key. Designers, developers, testers and delivery leads all contribute to accessibility. When everyone is on board, accessibility stops being seen as a blocker and starts being what it truly is, a driver of better performance, faster delivery, and more resilient products.
Faster time to value and reduced technical debt
When accessibility is considered from the outset, teams avoid the cost, delay and frustration of retrofitting fixes later. It’s far easier, and more efficient, to build it in than to bolt it on.
Accessible products often result in cleaner, more consistent code. That means fewer bugs, smoother handovers between teams, and reduced maintenance overhead in the long run. These foundations make products easier to scale and adapt over time.
Good accessibility practices naturally align with solid engineering, scalable front-end architecture, and effective QA processes. They encourage teams to think ahead, simplify complexity and design systems that work for everyone from day one.
Unlocking market reach and innovation
More than one billion people globally live with some form of disability. That’s a huge, often underserved audience with real buying power. By prioritising accessibility, businesses can widen their reach, improve brand perception, and tap into new markets that they should already be catering for.
Designing for a broader range of needs also encourages innovation. It highlights gaps in existing experiences that impact more users than you might expect. What starts as an edge case often reveals a universal issue.
Beyond commercial benefits, accessibility signals ethical leadership. It matters to employees, investors and customers who increasingly expect companies to act with purpose and inclusion in mind.
Build differently, build better
Accessibility isn’t an extra feature. It’s part of the foundation of any well-built digital product. When it’s embedded in culture, process and code, it strengthens quality, improves experience and unlocks long-term value.
Inclusive products are smarter, more resilient, and more commercially successful. Start early, build with intent, and you’ll create products that work better for everyone.
leighton.com