It’s Tuesday morning and you’re settling in at your desk with a fresh cup of coffee when your phone buzzes with a panicked email from a client. They’ve been hit with a demand letter over their website’s accessibility.
Your stomach sinks. Everything stops. Your developers drop their current projects. Designers scramble to redesign inaccessible interfaces. QA starts auditing every page. Project managers frantically calculate how much this emergency fix will cost.
It’s stressful. It’s expensive. And it was completely avoidable.
The “We’ll Deal With It Later” Problem
Too many agencies treat accessibility like that pile of dishes in the sink. You know you should handle it, but there’s always something more urgent demanding your attention.
Until there isn’t.
Why Teams Keep Putting It Off
Tight budgets and timelines are the usual suspects. When clients are breathing down your neck about launch dates, accessibility feels like a luxury you can’t afford.
Knowledge gaps don’t help either. Most web development programs barely touch on accessibility. If you’ve never been taught how to build inclusively, where do you even start?
But then there’s the most dangerous assumption of all: “We don’t have any disabled users.”
That silence isn’t golden. It’s costing you customers. More importantly, it’s shutting out people who just want to use the web like everyone else.
Wrong. You absolutely do.
The Silent Exodus You Don’t See
Here’s what’s really happening: Users with disabilities who can’t use your site or app aren’t complaining – they’re just leaving.
A 2016 study found that 71% of people with disabilities will abandon a difficult-to-use site and never return. Even worse? Nine of out ten will never bother telling you why they left.
That silence isn’t golden. It’s costing you customers. More importantly, it’s shutting out people who just want to use the web like everyone else.
Yes, the Legal Risk Is Real (But That’s Not the Whole Story)
Let’s talk numbers for a second:
- 2017: 814 ADA website lawsuits
- 2022: 3,225 lawsuits
- 2024: Over 4,000 lawsuits
And those are just the ones that made it to federal court. For every lawsuit, there are countless demand letters flying under the radar.
Don’t Fall for the “Quick Fix”
Tempted by those accessibility overlay plugins that promise instant compliance? Don’t be.
These widgets can only fix about 25-30% of accessibility issues at best. Meanwhile, over 1,000 websites using overlays still got sued in 2024.
Overlays are like putting a Band-Aid on a broken bone. They might make you feel better, but they’re creating a false sense of security. They don’t actually fix the problem.
Beyond Legal Risk: It’s About People
Getting sued isn’t just expensive – it’s embarrassing. But here’s what matters more: when your site isn’t accessible, you’re excluding real people from participating in digital life.
People with disabilities have the same right to access information, to shop online, to apply for jobs, and to connect with others as anyone else. When we build inaccessible sites, we’re not just risking lawsuits. We’re denying people their civil rights.
Public accessibility failures can permanently damage your client’s brand (and yours). It’s much easier to build a website right the first time than to rebuild it after a public relations disaster.
The Better Way: Bake It In From the Start
What if instead of playing defense, you went on offense?
What if accessibility became as routine as checking that your site works in both Chrome and Firefox?
When accessibility is baked into your workflow, you catch issues early – when they’re cheap and easy to fix.
Make It Part of Your Process
Integrate accessibility into every phase:
Design: Check color contrast, focus indicators, form field labels, and make sure you’re not relying on color alone to convey information.
Development: Write semantic HTML, add proper alt text for images, and do basic keyboard and screen reader tests before committing code.
QA: Train QA testers in accessibility testing basics and include accessibility checks in your standard testing workflow.
Content: Add helpful alt text, write clear and descriptive link text, and use proper heading structure.
When accessibility is baked into your workflow, you catch issues early – when they’re cheap and easy to fix. You also build a documented trail of good faith efforts that can be invaluable if (or when) legal challenges arise.
Progress Over Perfection
Accessibility isn’t about achieving some mythical perfect score. It’s about continuous improvement and respect for all users.
Here’s a secret: No website is ever going to be 100% accessible for every user in every situation.
And that’s okay.
Accessibility isn’t about achieving some mythical perfect score. It’s about continuous improvement and respect for all users. The goal is creating digital spaces where everyone can participate fully, regardless of their abilities.
Maybe this sprint you fix all the missing alt text. Next sprint, you tackle keyboard navigation. Small, consistent progress beats trying to fix everything at once and burning out your team.
Tools That Actually Help
You don’t have to do this all manually. Modern accessibility tools can handle the routine tasks, freeing up your team to focus on the complex problem-solving that actually requires human expertise.
I know this because I’ve been doing accessibility audits for over 15 years, and for most of that time, the process was frankly miserable. I’d find myself juggling multiple testing tools, manually consolidating results into spreadsheets, and spending more time on data entry than actual accessibility work. It felt like I’d signed up for a data entry job instead of one helping make the web better.
Beyond Annual Audits: Continuous Monitoring
Forget the old “annual accessibility audit” approach. Your website changes constantly – your accessibility monitoring should too.
Tools like AAArdvark can check your sites daily or weekly, catching issues before they become problems. No more waiting months to discover that last week’s content update introduced missing alt text or broken form labels.
Visual Issue Tracking That Actually Works
Instead of juggling spreadsheets full of cryptic accessibility violations, tools like AAArdvark show you exactly what’s wrong and where. (Full disclosure: we built AAArdvark because we got tired of the fragmented, frustrating process that most accessibility tools put you through.)
With AAArdvark, you can:
- See the problematic element highlighted directly on the page
- Add comments and assign fixes to team members
- Track progress in real time
- Build an audit trail of improvements
When issues do arise, you can respond with evidence instead of panic. This documentation can be the difference between a quick resolution and a costly legal battle.
Be the Agency Clients Actually Trust
While other agencies are scrambling to fix yesterday’s problems, you’re preventing tomorrow’s.
Here’s your competitive advantage: While other agencies are scrambling to fix yesterday’s problems, you’re preventing tomorrow’s.
Sleep Better at Night
It’s not fair, but even accessible sites can receive demand letters. Some are legitimate, pointing out real issues you missed. Others are opportunistic, hoping you’ll settle quickly rather than fight.
But when you’ve built accessibility into your process from day one, you’re not defenseless. You have:
- Documentation of your accessibility efforts
- Evidence of ongoing monitoring and improvements
- A clear process for addressing issues quickly
- The ability to demonstrate good faith compliance efforts
This means demand letters become manageable business issues, not existential crises.
Attract Better Clients
Word gets around. When you can confidently say “We build all our projects with accessibility in mind from the ground up,” you attract clients who care about quality and inclusivity.
These are the clients who value long-term partnerships over quick fixes, understand that good work costs more upfront but saves money down the road, and believe in digital inclusion as a fundamental right.
Stand Out in a Crowded Market
In a world full of agencies promising the cheapest, fastest website, be the one promising the best.
Accessibility expertise isn’t just nice to have – it’s becoming essential. The agencies that get ahead of this trend will own the market in five years.
Start Now
Don’t wait for that panicked email. Don’t wait for the demand letter. Don’t wait for the lawsuit.
Audit your current process – Where can you add accessibility checkpoints?
Train your team – Invest in accessibility education for everyone, not just developers.
Choose your tools – Find an accessibility platform that fits your workflow.
Start small – Pick one accessibility improvement to implement this week.
The Bottom Line
Building accessible websites isn’t about creating a lawsuit-proof shield, because that doesn’t exist.
It’s about recognizing that the web belongs to everyone. When we build with accessibility in mind, we’re not just checking compliance boxes – we’re affirming that people with disabilities deserve the same digital opportunities as everyone else.
Yes, being prepared for legal challenges matters. But what matters more is building a business that stands for inclusion and human dignity. It’s about creating digital experiences that welcome everyone. It’s about being the kind of agency that clients trust with their most important projects – and that real users can actually use.
The choice is yours: Keep playing defense and hoping nothing bad happens, or take control, build responsibly, and create a web that works for all of us.
Your future self – and your clients – will thank you.
Ready to make accessibility part of your process?
Start building more inclusive websites today with AAArdvark’s visual issue tracking and automated monitoring.
No credit card required.
