Today I want to talk about a real sticky situation: accessibility during a crisis and the myth that there's no time during a crisis to fix accessibility issues.
The classic example is when you've been pulling a double to get that new feature out the door and just when you thought you made your deadline, critical bugs pop out faster than you can fix them. You're overwhelmed with customer complaints, your product team is struggling to find and squash all these annoyances and you've got the business breathing down your neck.
In times like these, it's easy to fall into panic mode and think there's no time to worry about accessibility.
Here's the thing though. A crisis is the reason to make time!
When people are relying on your product more than ever, the last thing you want is to shut out a portion of your audience. Whether it's someone with a disability trying to access vital information or a stressed-out customer struggling to navigate your site, accessibility matters.
And here's the added bonus: addressing accessibility issues during a crisis can actually save you time and headaches in the long run. Because when you make time to fix accessibility issues in a crisis, you're also preventing future crises from happening.
Fixing accessibility during a crisis is like trying to fix a leaky boat in the middle of a storm. It's not ideal. But if you don't fix the wholes, you're going to sink eventually, no matter how hard you paddle.