Product owners love rules.
They've got rules for prioritising features, rules for managing stakeholders and rules for hitting deadlines. But there's another set of rules quietly running in the background. These rules keep web accessibility permanently stuck in the "not-today" pile.
And while teams follow these rules religiously, millions of users are left unable to access the products they're building.
Here are just five such rules.
1. The "It's too expensive" rule
They'd love to make the product accessible, but the quotes from accessibility consultants are just overblown for their budgets. The addendum to this one is the added development time. They simply don't have the budget or the time right now. Maybe next quarter.
By then, accessibility debt will skyrocket.
2. The "When Things Calm Down" Rule
There's always something more urgent. A new feature that'll boost conversions. A bug that's driving support tickets through the roof. Accessibility gets pushed to the back burner, sprint after sprint.
The problem is, "next sprint" never comes. There's always another fire to put out, another stakeholder demand to meet.
3. The "Master Strategy" Rule
Some get stuck in planning hell. They want the perfect accessibility strategy before they start. Every edge case mapped out, every guideline memorised.
But while you're planning, your product remains inaccessible. Sometimes you've got to start small and fix the most glaring issues first, then build from there.
4. The "Someone Else's Job" Rule
Accessibility isn't really a product decision. It's design. Or maybe development? Who does screen readers? QA right? Either way, it's definitely not something the product team needs to worry about. We'll leave it to the experts.
5. The "Not Our Audience" Rule
"Our users don't need accessibility features," they'll say. "We're B2B, not consumer-facing." Or maybe it's "Our demographic is young and tech-savvy."
But here's the thing. One in four adults has some form of disability. That's not a niche market you can ignore.
The reality is that these rules are just different flavours of the same excuse: not today.