What's the difference between accessibility debt that needs immediate attention versus stuff that can just wait?
This is a great question. And I often hear others say that accessibility can't wait. You have to do it.
Sure, but that's not very encouraging when you're staring at hundreds of issues in an audit. Everything affects real people trying to use your product. Everything contributes to your overall accessibility maturity. When everything needs immediate attention, nothing gets it.
You need to address everything eventually. It's a matter of timing and resources.
I look at three key differences between accessibility debt that you need to pay down now versus things you can just plan for later.
1. Does it block users?
If people cannot continue using your product at all, then it's a blocker and I consider it important enough to work on now. Usually, this is about forms that can't be used with a keyboard, broken navigation or missing labels on call to action buttons. If things are just annoying but non-blocking, then they can wait.
2. Does it carry legal risk?
If someone can't complete a purchase or access essential info, you might get into legal trouble. Minor colour contrast issues are less likely to get you in trouble.
3. Does it impact your bottom line?
When accessibility problems directly affect revenue or core user journeys, they need fixing yesterday. A broken checkout process costs money immediately. Poorly visible focus indicators on a marketing post isn't great, but it's unlikely it will have any impact on your business bottom line.
The best way to tell the two apart is to map each issue against your critical user paths. If it breaks a core journey, it's urgent. You need to also consider your user base and target market. If you're active in a heavily regulated industry, like healthcare or e-commerce, or you know you serve a lot of assistive technology users, you need to raise the priority across the board.