We haven't had any complaints about accessibility.
I heard this offered as reassurance the other week. I don't find it reassuring myself.
It assumes people who struggle with your product will tell you. That they know where to complain, can use that channel and have enough energy and willingness left to explain the problem.
That's a whole lot to ask of someone who just wanted to book an appointment.
But let's say they do go through that trouble and they won't just give up. They might ask their partner to do it. They might call and book it like that without even mentioning they couldn't do it online.
None of those becomes an accessibility ticket.
Your support backlog stays clean while somebody else deals with your failure.
And if your feedback form has the same issues as your booking flow, you've made it impossible for anyone to complain about how difficult your product is.
Patients don't owe us any of that persistence. They're trying to get care, not volunteer for QA.
"No complaints" needs a follow-up question. How would we know everyone can do this? How do we know someone can't?
Talking to support can help. So can testing these tasks with people with disabilities. If you have it, data about abandonment can show where to investigate, although it won't explain the cause on its own.
None of this means that every lost booking is an accessibility problem. But if we only count the problems people do manage to report, we're only measuring how hard they're willing to work to get our attention.
I'd rather spend that effort finding the problems ourselves. And all you have to do is admit that an empty complaints inbox isn't evidence of a usable product.