Accessibility is a $13 trillion market, not a favour

There’s a quiet assumption baked into how most companies approach accessibility: that it’s a cost you take on to be a good citizen. Something you do for people with disabilities, out of goodwill or to avoid a lawsuit.

That framing is both wrong and expensive.

The numbers don’t lie

Around 1.3 billion people — roughly one in six of us — live with a significant disability. Together with their friends and families, they command an estimated $13 trillion in annual disposable income. That is not a niche. It is one of the largest underserved markets on the planet.

Now hold that against another number: 94.8% of homepages still fail basic WCAG checks. The market is enormous, and almost nobody is building for it well. That gap is the opportunity.

When you exclude disabled users, you’re not making a moral choice. You’re making a market choice — and a bad one.

”Disability-first” makes products better for everyone

Here’s the part teams underestimate. Designing for the hardest cases first doesn’t produce a stripped-down “accessible version.” It produces a better product, full stop.

• Captions were built for Deaf users. Now everyone uses them on a noisy train.
• High-contrast, large touch targets help low-vision users — and anyone using a phone in bright sunlight.
• Clear, linear flows help users with cognitive disabilities — and every first-time user under time pressure.

This is the curb-cut effect: the ramp cut into a kerb for wheelchairs turns out to help parents with strollers, travellers with luggage, and delivery workers. Build disability-first and the whole experience gets more intuitive.

Impact over intent

We have a value we repeat internally until it’s boring: impact over intent. Good intentions don’t help a screen-reader user who can’t complete checkout. What helps is a measured, tested, real-world outcome.

So measure it. Track task completion for assistive-technology users. Audit against WCAG 2.2 AA as a floor, not a ceiling. Treat every accessibility bug as what it is: a customer you just turned away.

Where to start

You don’t need to boil the ocean. Start with:

1. An audit of your highest-traffic flows against WCAG 2.2 AA.
2. Prioritised, plain-English fixes your team can actually ship.
3. Monitoring so you don’t regress the moment the audit ends.

Do that, and accessibility stops being a line item on the risk register and starts being a growth lever. That’s the whole idea behind Purple Aware Solutions — accessibility that quietly enhances the experience for every user.

Ready to turn compliance into an advantage? Start a conversation.