Pushback or objections when advocating for accessibility is unfortunately very common. Companies are all at different points in their journey, and the Accessibility Maturity Model from W3C outlines these different stages. The less mature a company is in its journey, the more often pushback will be encountered, and the more nonsensical this pushback can be.
“It’s very common, everyone does it”
A classic. One that’s used time and time again. This is really a simple bandwagon fallacy that pops up a lot in Accessibility as a way to justify a decision. Just because lots of companies do it, doesn’t mean it’s accessible. It doesn’t mean it aligns with WCAG, it doesn’t mean it’s been tested with disabled people.
Other flavours of this include “but Google does it..” There is an amazing blog post that tackles this common fallacy in depth.
It also compounds, sometimes these decisions are made in 2 seconds on a Thursday afternoon, if the company is a household name then other people copy it and thus the cycle continues.
Does the pushback have engagement with WCAG? No, then this is ableism. We’ve all absorbed ableist ideas, because society itself is built on them, the good news is we can unlearn these. Is there a follow up task created to revisit it? No. Ableism. However, does the pushback engage with WCAG and provide solutions and compromises? This is healthier.
“Accessibility can’t be a bottle neck”
There’s a lot to unpick in this sentence. This phrase frames accessibility compliance as a type of obstruction, not a normal part of the process. This misrepresents accessibility, this extra burden or the “cherry on top” rather than the flour in the cake that’s baked into the process. If something is a bottleneck, it suggests it’s an additional step tacked onto an existing process. It implies Accessibility is an add-on or afterthought. This is why it’s crucial to have an experienced accessibility specialist on the team from the beginning.
It usually is used to ignore taking action. A way to argue that urgency has to override the work being asked to be completed. A way to create pressure and convenience so it can be ignored. However it just creates more work, if this is not fixed at Design stage, it ends up being way more expensive later on to resolve.
Accessibility is about baking it in from the very first thought, rather than trying to retrofit it later. There’s been quite a few food analogies. One that has been popularised is from an web accessibility engineer at Salesforce and co-host of the 13 Letters Podcast
You can’t put the blueberries in the muffin after the muffin is baked. – Cordelia McGee-Tubb
I’ve seen other variations of this
You can’t sprinkle on eggs after the cake comes out of the oven…taste along the way - Sara Basson
Also by calling it a bottleneck, this tries to shift responsibility.
Someone or a team can implicitly “blame” accessibility itself for delays. Rather than looking inward at their own processes, lack of proactive planning, lack of training, poor hiring, unwillingness to change habits, read documentation, or insufficient knowledge.
It also devalues the expertise of accessibility professionals. The language can be disheartening for those championing accessibility. It signals that their efforts are perceived as hindrances, annoyances to business as usual.
“We have to live in the real world”
By suggesting that accessibility is not a part of the “real world,” it implies that the experiences and needs of 24% of people are somehow not part of this “real world”.
It also frames the request as an extreme or unreasonable demand when the actual request is likely a very reasonable, well-documented best practice (“Can we add alt text to these images?”). By misrepresenting the request, it’s easier to dismiss it as impractical.
Airbnb introduced a new accessibility category and generated an extra $5.5 million in 4 months.
“We just sell [product] we’re not a bank”
The sentiment behind is built on a foundation of really shaky logic. There are multiple fallacies at play here.
First, it uses the simplicity fallacy, implying that because a product is not essential, the need for accessibility is trivial. This ignores the fact that 1) the EAA is active and 2) a user’s experience is defined not by the product, but by the user interface.
Second, this statement presents a false dichotomy, suggesting that a business is either a high-stakes, high-risk company like a bank that needs to care about accessibility, or it isn’t. In reality, the legal obligation to provide equal access exists for all, regardless of the industry.
Third, the argument often stems from a place of appeal to ignorance, where a lack of personal experience with disability leads to the assumption that a website is universally usable simply because it works for the speaker. They’ve never been blocked making a purchase so “who cares”.
Finally, this perspective often employs a straw man fallacy, arguing against a caricatured version of accessibility as an overly burdensome and costly process, rather than what it actually is: a set of foundational best practices that improve the experience for everyone.
It sort of implies some companies need to be more accessible than others as they can cause larger harm. In some ways I can understand this while I don’t agree with it. The idea that a financial product needs to be more accessible than a luxury scarf company. If someone can’t buy a luxury scarf they can purchase a different scarf. However doesn’t everyone deserve a to be able to purchase a luxury scarf if they want to?
Also, what happens when digital professionals that work at the luxury scarf company take their skills into the healthcare sector?
“This WCAG advice is from 2017?!”
The implication of this sentiment is that because the advice is older therefore it’s not valid. It’s the inverse of an appeal to novelty fallacy. This fallacy suggests something is superior because it’s new.
Of course there is the possibility that changes might have happened since 2017 and there is a better way to do things, a more accessible way. However this should be easily evidenced. Is there an issue raised against this pattern? Is there an existing discussion to read? Some new research to review?
However, if recommended WCAG patterns are dismissed simply because they are old without any other justification it sets a really odd precedent.
I think this stems back to a cultural issue. As WCAG was published in 1999, WCAG 2.0 in 2001, WCAG 2.2 in October 2023. Private companies have now been building digital products and services for over 26 years and have been able to ignore WCAG.
26 years is a lifetime (and then some) in tech, there will undoubtedly be some digital professionals that have been able to progress to the most senior levels, sell courses and pass on “best practice” without even considering WCAG. Also, in the age of context collapse, casual advice can be presented with the same authority as in-depth research from professionals.
“If we’re sued we’ll revisit it”
The argument implies that because no lawsuit has been filed yet, there is no problem, and therefore no action is needed. The absence of a lawsuit is being used as evidence that the issue isn’t important enough to address. This is a terrible strategy for several critical reasons. It’s a reactive, not proactive.
Also, “the biggest lie in software is Phase 2” - Jeff Gothelf from Lean UX
When dealing with pushback, ask
- Is someone only looking for some type of last-minute sign off?
- Has someone engaged with the detail? With WCAG? With the the resources shared? Have they chosen to reply selectively and ignored all other points?
- Is the person acting in good faith or engaging in demagogue behavior? Good faith means they are genuinely trying to find a solution. Demagogue behavior means they are focused on gaining support, even if it means ignoring facts or expert advice to do so.
- Can this be clearly captured as a bug to be prioritised later on?
When intent and expertise are aligned, accessibility challenges can be addressed as technical issues by professionals working together toward solutions. With the right people in the right roles, accessibility can stop being a tick-box exercise and becomes a natural, integrated part of creating better products.