We’re Excluding 1.3 Billion People from Digital Life. That’s a Crisis

I don’t usually lead with dramatic headlines, but sometimes the numbers speak for themselves. When 1.3 billion people worldwide face barriers accessing digital spaces they need for work, healthcare, and civic participation, that’s not a “nice-to-have” issue or a compliance checkbox. That’s a global civil rights crisis.

Let’s talk about what this actually looks like in practice.

The scale of exclusion is staggering

Imagine a parent trying to schedule their child’s doctor appointment through a patient portal that doesn’t work with screen readers. Or a job seeker who can’t complete an application because the form fields aren’t correctly labeled. These aren’t hypothetical scenarios – they happen every day.

In the United States alone, over 70 million adults report having a disability. That’s 26% of all adults. The digital divide is stark: 15% of people with disabilities never go online at all, compared to just 5% of people without disabilities. Even among those who do go online, people with disabilities use the internet daily at lower rates – 75% versus 87% for people without disabilities.

This isn’t just about doom scrolling, playing games, or reading news. We’re talking about essential services:

When we build inaccessible websites, we’re not just failing to meet a standard. We’re excluding people from modern life.

Employment

People with disabilities face an employment rate of just 22.7%, compared to 65.5% for those without disabilities. When job applications, workplace training platforms, and career resources are inaccessible, we’re creating additional barriers to economic participation.

Healthcare

Inaccessible patient portals, telehealth platforms, and appointment systems prevent people from accessing medical care. In an increasingly digital healthcare system, this can be life-threatening.

Education

7.3 million students receive special education services in US public schools, yet encounter barriers in online learning platforms and digital course materials that should be supporting their success.

When we build inaccessible websites and apps, we’re not just failing to meet a technical standard. We’re excluding people from opportunities, services, and participation in modern life.

The web is failing at accessibility – systemically

The most frustrating part? We know exactly what’s wrong, but we’re not fixing it.

The average website homepage has 51 accessibility errors. Users with disabilities encounter barriers on 1 in every 24 homepage elements.

The WebAIM Million report for 2025 shows that 94.8% of homepages fail basic accessibility standards. That’s barely an improvement from 97.8% in 2019. Six years of conferences, articles, and awareness campaigns, and we’ve moved the needle by less than 3 percentage points.

Even more frustrating? The same six technical issues cause 96.4% of all automatically detectable accessibility failures:

• Low contrast text (affects 79.1% of websites)
• Missing alt text for images (55.5% of websites)
• Missing form labels (48.2% of websites)
• Empty links (45.4% of websites)
• Empty buttons (29.6% of websites)
• Missing page language (15.8% of websites)

These aren’t obscure edge cases or complex technical challenges. These are basic, well-understood problems with clear solutions. We’ve known about them for years.

The average website homepage has 51 accessibility errors. Users with disabilities encounter barriers on 1 in every 24 homepage elements.

The cost of inaction is massive

While we’re failing to build accessible websites, we’re also leaving money on the table. People with disabilities control $8 trillion in global spending power – $490 billion annually in the US alone. Yet 71% of disabled online shoppers abandon difficult-to-navigate websites.

That’s not just a missed opportunity. It’s a fundamental business failure.

That’s not just a missed opportunity. It’s a fundamental business failure.

The legal consequences are escalating too. Over 4,000 ADA website lawsuits were filed in 2024, with damages and legal fees that can easily reach six figures.

But focusing only on lawsuits and lost revenue misses the point. The real cost is human: when someone can’t apply for a job, schedule medical care, purchase items they need, or access government services because websites exclude them. The gap between knowing what’s wrong and fixing it isn’t technical – it’s about commitment.

We can do better, starting now

Here’s what gives me hope: the solutions aren’t mysterious or complex. Research shows that fixing those “Big 6” accessibility barriers would immediately improve access for millions of people.

You don’t need to become an accessibility expert overnight. You don’t need to audit every page of your website simultaneously. You can start with the basics:

• Ensure sufficient color contrast between text and backgrounds
• Add meaningful alt text to images or mark decorative images appropriately
• Label your form fields clearly so screen readers can identify what each field is for
• Make links and buttons descriptive – often this means adding alt text to images inside links or accessible labels to icon buttons
• Include a language declaration in your HTML so screen readers know how to pronounce your content

These fixes address the majority of barriers people encounter. They’re achievable. And for many of them, you can make meaningful progress in an afternoon.

This is about more than compliance

When someone can’t use a website because of how it’s built, we’ve created a barrier that didn’t need to exist.

I’ve been working in accessibility for over 25 years, and I’ve seen how often the conversation often gets reduced to legal requirements and WCAG guidelines. But those standards exist for a reason: they’re our attempt to ensure people can actually access the things they need.

It’s about building a web that works for everyone. It’s about recognizing that the diversity of human experience includes disability, and our digital spaces should reflect that. It’s about the fundamental belief that everyone deserves equal access to information, services, and opportunities.

When someone can’t use a website because of how it’s built, we’ve created a barrier that didn’t need to exist.

The exclusion is happening right now, to real people trying to live their lives, do their jobs, and participate in their communities. But the crisis is also fixable.

We know what the problems are. We know how to solve them. What we need now is the commitment to actually do the work.