Accessibility isn't optional. It's a legal requirement, and it's good design.
If you think running a scanner after the fact and fixing the major issues counts as accessibility work, you're doing it wrong. Fixing accessibility problems is exponentially harder than building it right from the beginning.
I've helped facilitate and train over 300 people on WCAG compliance. Most don't understand why they have to do this "extra step" and implement all these seemingly non-beneficial things.
"Designing for WCAG 2.1 AA is limiting."
Actually, it isn't—and it improves usability for everyone. Designing for WCAG 2.1 AAA? That's hard. That's an extreme sport. AA is not.
Preaching the rules doesn't do much because everyone's thinking: I'm not blind, I can use a mouse, I don't need this, and everyone I know is the same.
Here's what shifts that thinking: everyone, at some point, has needed accessibility. Some of us have a permanent need. Others have a temporary one. But we've all been there.
The number of color-blind people is more than you'd think.
4.5% of the population is color blind. Only 4.5%, you might say—but that's over 350 million people globally. In the US alone, that's 12 million people.
Are you okay making something unusable for them?
Many people think accessibility is only for the blind. Far from it.
While blind users are part of it, low-vision users are also counted—anyone with vision issues. Someone with glasses isn't typically considered part of this group. But if they lost or forgot their glasses? They're now in a temporary or situational disability. Your design might be impossible for them to use.
Temporary and situational disabilities—we all fall into these categories at some point.
Broken arm? Broken leg? Congratulations, you need special accommodations. That's accessibility.
Think about being right-handed, then injuring your right hand. Now you need to use your left hand for the mouse, or rely strictly on the keyboard. The list goes on.
These guidelines don't just benefit people who live with a disability every day. They affect every person at some point.
When people realize everyone needs accessibility at some point, it becomes personal. These stop looking like "have to dos" and start looking like "want to dos."
That hit-target requirement for mobile? You'd love it if ads actually adhered to that instead of making close buttons 1 pixel and impossible to tap, wouldn't you?
Properly contrasted colors make things easier to read whether you're color blind or not.
Visual indicators besides color shift for active/focus states make scanning so much easier than squinting at something to notice a slight shade change.
Don't you hate when a site sends you to an external link and you have to find your way back? Noting external links—that's accessibility.
The actual WCAG guide is long and dry. Legal jargon with generic direction.
Fortunately, people have done excellent work breaking down these requirements into actionable items. Find a resource that works for you and follow its guidance.
The simple ones: font size, color contrast, hit targets, visual indicators beyond color. Engineers have more to deal with—screen reader code, ARIA tags, and others.
Throughout my career I've seen both approaches: retrofitting accessibility into an existing product, and building it in from the beginning.
Building it in from the start is immensely easier. Hands down. No contest.
The companies that had to retrofit? They were being sued. I dealt with that reality at two companies. Unpleasant doesn't begin to describe it.
Implementing WCAG compliance in design and engineering is actually easy. It doesn't require a ton of extra work. It doesn't require an extra quarter.
When you add it into your flow, it becomes second nature. It feels odd when you don't do it.
For design, it means checking colors and a few other steps—but usually the rules are built into a design system. Still good to know the actual requirements so you're not relying on something that could be misleading you.
For engineering, it's a bit more in-depth—maybe an extra sprint to hit all the bases. In the grand scheme, that's nothing.
Because if you skip that sprint to release quicker and then get legal notice, you won't be spending one sprint to fix things. You'll be spending a quarter or two at minimum.
Trust me. Been there.