At Kooba, we’ve worked with countless clients to improve the commercial performance of their website. Typically we do this by increasing the conversion rate of certain pages, ensuring that a larger proportion of users end up becoming customers or leads.
But of all the methods we use to accomplish this, one is rarely mentioned: accessibility.
By designing and developing an inclusive experience, we can often raise engagement and conversion rates, leading to improved commercial performance. Here’s why:
Removing friction
Digital accessibility is all about reducing the amount of effort it takes for a user to navigate and use your website. This means adding greater context to different components (for example, adding captions to video content), building a logical navigation, and providing important information within a clear layout. Some of this is visible, but a lot of accessibility work occurs within the code of your site, allowing it to be easily interpreted by screen readers and other accessibility tools.
In general, an accessible website will have reduced friction for each user as they navigate from one page to another. This is true for disabled users, but also everybody else. After all, if a design is clear and easy to understand, everyone will experience fewer roadblocks when trying to convert or access information.
Of course, this idea of removing friction also applies to many conversion rate optimisation (CRO) strategies. If we want users to convert into customers, it's important to make that pathway as intuitive and simple as possible, and avoid “getting in the way” with irrelevant or complex design features.
A broader audience
Not only does a more accessible site make it easier for everyone to convert, it also helps you reach customers you might otherwise exclude. The World Health Organization estimates that 1.3 billion people, or around one in six people worldwide, experience a significant disability. In Ireland, more than 1.1 million people reported experiencing at least one long-lasting condition or difficulty in the 2022 Census, representing 22% of the population.
This is not a small or commercially insignificant audience. Research into the online experiences of disabled consumers in the UK found that 69% had abandoned websites because of accessibility barriers, while 83% limited their shopping to websites they already knew were accessible. The same research estimated that inaccessible websites could be missing out on £17.1 billion in online spending each year.
A wider perspective on accessibility
Ultimately, this encourages a wider shift in how we understand digital accessibility. If conversion rate optimisation, usability and accessibility all reinforce one another, then why separate them in the first place? Why should accessibility work be isolated to a specific phase of a project, and tacked-on only after a design team has already finished their work?
By seeing inclusion in a wider and more holistic lens, we can not only improve the accessibility of our solutions, but also benefit from the insights that accessibility expertise brings to the design and development phases of a project. This means that each element of your website will be built to accommodate every user, all the time. The usability and conversion benefits this brings are often dramatic, and cannot be achieved by a retroactive accessibility phase.
This is one reason why we like to keep accessibility in mind from the beginning of each project. Regardless of the specific compliance target, we understand that basic usability improvements can provide outsized commercial benefits.
To learn more about how accessibility can improve the usability and commercial performance of your website, get in touch with our team.
