Why Optimism Still Matters in Accessibility

A little while back, I laid out the accessibility crisis in stark terms: 1.3 billion people excluded from digital life, 94.8% of websites failing basic standards, and six easily fixable issues causing a lot of damage. The numbers paint a grim picture of where we are.

Then I shared some small wins – three success stories out of dozens of tries this year – and said that speaking up still matters, even when it usually doesn’t work.

You might be wondering: which is it? Is accessibility a crisis or a cause for hope?

The answer is both. And if we’re going to make real progress, we need to hold both truths at once.

This isn’t just an emotional question. It’s a strategic one. Optimism isn’t about feeling good. It’s about what actually works.

Why Cynicism Feels Rational (But Isn’t)

Let’s be honest – the case for cynicism looks pretty solid right now.

Web accessibility advocates have spent years raising awareness, publishing guidelines, running conferences, and advocating for change. The WebAIM Million shows we’ve moved the needle by less than 3 percentage points in the last six years. Most accessibility feedback disappears into backlogs or gets met with defensive responses. Legal pressure keeps increasing, but compliance barely budges. The federal government in the US keeps undoing previous steps forward for no discernible reason. Overlay vendors still mislead companies into thinking they can slap on a widget and call it fixed.

People are exhausted.

Cynicism isn’t realism. It’s surrender dressed up as sophistication.

Cynicism feels protective. If you expect nothing to change, you can’t be disappointed. If you stop caring, you can’t burn out. Or so the logic goes. It’s tempting to throw up your hands and say “nothing matters, nothing changes, why bother.”

But cynicism has costs we don’t talk about enough.

It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If everyone stops speaking up because “it won’t matter anyway,” then it definitely won’t matter. When experienced professionals check out or become bitter, newer people lose mentors and examples of what persistence looks like. And when the community goes quiet, we hand victory to the people who were never going to care in the first place. Why would a company prioritize accessibility if they believe the advocates have given up?

Cynicism isn’t realism. It’s surrender dressed up as sophistication.

I shared three stories this year where speaking up actually worked – a plugin developer who fixed an issue in the next release, a team that iterated until they got it right, a SaaS platform that rewrote their widget and shifted their whole approach to accessibility. Were those flukes? Or were they proof that the strategy – persistence, visibility, vocal advocacy – still has traction?

I think they’re proof. Not that it works every time, but that it works often enough to keep trying.

What Optimism Actually Means

Optimism is strategic persistence despite incomplete information.

Let’s clear something up. Optimism isn’t pretending everything’s fine. It’s not ignoring the 94.8% failure rate or downplaying burnout. It’s not toxic positivity or putting on a brave face when things are genuinely hard.

Optimism is strategic persistence despite incomplete information. It’s the belief that your actions can matter, even when you can’t predict which ones will land.

Think about that SaaS widget story I shared. When I reported those accessibility issues, I had no idea that someone internally had been campaigning for a rewrite for months. My feedback became the leverage they needed to get it prioritized. I didn’t know that when I sent the email. I just sent it because it seemed worth trying.

That’s what optimism looks like in practice. You plant the seeds without knowing which ones will take root. You speak up without knowing if anyone’s listening. You fix the issue in front of you without knowing if it will compound into something bigger.

Optimism isn’t about believing we’ll win every time. It’s about believing that if we keep showing up, we’ll win enough times to matter.

And that’s not naive. It’s the only realistic strategy we have.

The Compound Effect of Small Wins

Here’s what I’ve learned after 25 years in this field: every fixed button has a multiplier effect.

Every fixed button has a multiplier effect.

There’s the immediate win – the individual user who can now complete that action. But then there’s everything that ripples out from it. The developer learned something and will apply it to their next project. The organization now has one more person internally who understands why accessibility matters. The message gets sent to other companies: people notice, people care, people speak up.

Progress doesn’t always look linear. It’s not a smooth upward curve from crisis to solution. It’s a bunch of small fixes scattered across months and years, and then suddenly a regulation shifts, or a major platform adopts a standard, or a lawsuit sets precedent – and all those small wins start connecting into something bigger.

We know exactly what’s broken. Contrast, alt text, form labels, empty links, empty buttons, missing language declarations. We know how to fix those things. The problem isn’t knowledge. It’s adoption. And adoption happens one fix, one conversation, one team at a time.

The accessibility community is small. We can’t afford to lose people to burnout or cynicism. We need the long game. We need people who keep showing up, even when the work is hard and the wins feel too small.

So what does optimism look like in practice?

Practicing Optimism Without Burning Out

You don’t have to report every issue you encounter. You don’t have to educate every developer who doesn’t understand ARIA. You don’t have to fight every battle.

Pick your battles strategically. Focus on the places where you have energy, where you think there’s a real chance of impact, or where the issue affects people most directly. Save your capacity for the moments that matter.

When you do get a win – even a small one – celebrate it. Did someone fix a form label after you flagged it? That’s a win. Document it. Share it if you can. It reminds the rest of us that this work isn’t futile. It creates visible proof that speaking up can lead to change.

Build communities of optimism. Surround yourself with people who are also choosing persistence. Cynicism is contagious, but so is hope. Find the folks who are still planting seeds, still fixing issues, still believing that incremental progress adds up to something meaningful.

And protect your own capacity. Walk away when you need to. Rest is part of the long game. You don’t owe anyone your energy, and taking care of yourself isn’t giving up. It’s making sure you can keep going when you’re ready.

We’re not trying to fix the whole web tomorrow. We’re trying to improve the odds. We’re trying to make sure that when someone is ready to listen, there’s a clear path forward.

The Work Ahead

It’s been a year of both crisis and small victories.

The web gets better one fix at a time.

1.3 billion people still face barriers to digital participation. 94.8% of sites still fail a basic automated scan for accessibility issues. The same six issues keep showing up year after year in the WebAIM Million.

And three teams this year fixed accessibility problems I reported to them. I guided dozens of developers toward being more thoughtful and intentional when coding. I helped people fix accessibility issues on their own sites, on their company’s sites, on their clients’ sites.

Both are true. The question is: which reality do we build from?

Optimism isn’t naive. It’s necessary. Because the alternative – silence, cynicism, disengagement – guarantees that nothing improves. It ensures that the people who were never going to care get exactly what they want: a web that continues to exclude millions of people because it’s easier and cheaper to ignore the problem.

The web gets better one fix at a time. Sometimes you’ll be the person who makes that fix happen. Sometimes you won’t. But showing up, speaking up, and trying again – that’s what turns crisis into progress.

Heading into 2025, I’m choosing optimism. Not because it’s easy. Not because I think every effort will succeed. But because it’s the only strategy that has a chance of working.