If you're caught in a rip current, panic sets in. Your instinct is to fight it. To swim straight back to shore, going against the current. But that's the worst thing you can do. You're taking on a force of nature. You'll only exhaust yourself and get nowhere. Instead, the trick is to swim parallel to the shore, escaping the current's pull, then make your way back safely.
In my experience so far, I've had to deal with two types of people that I now see are somehow akin to the current.
I've dealt with stubborn accessibility experts who were anything but. And I've met stubborn people who just refused to accept the facts.
I used to approach both "forces of nature" the same. Take them head on! Show them I know more/better.
But I was wasting my time and energy on pointless, albeit great, arguments.
- "Screen readers? Our users don't use those!" (Spoiler: Some did.)
- "Text-to-speech? We don't have blind users!" (Fact: Text-to-Speech isn't specifically for users who are blind.)
- "We'll just add alt text later." (Spoiler: They dind't.)
- "Accessibility slows us down." (Fact: Fixing issues later slows you down more and the costs are higher.)
Fighting these myths head-on is exhausting.
Instead, I try to approach the current from the side.
- Show, don't tell. I demo how a screen reader navigates their website.
- Use data. I can quote laws and highlight legal risks and lost revenue.
- Bake it in early in small batches. Accessibility is easier (and cheaper) when it's part of the process.
Note to the reader: I don't swim so I had to do some reading about swimming against the current and how you might escape with your life. Take this with a grain of salt. It made sense to me when reading it and writing it, but I've never been through something like this.
I can attest, however, that it works much better when you don't try to debate accessibility with those types of people.