How Far Will the Average Person Go for Their Favorite Pizza?
Will they persevere through a login process that traps them on a rewards balance screen with no way out? Will they tolerate a mobile app that spits out the same error message no matter how many times they try to clear it? Do they have the patience to navigate an ordering screen that crams so many options onto one page it seems they could get lost and never find their way back again?
This is not an exaggeration. This was my actual experience today while trying to order from my favorite pizza place. I ended up ordering from a competitor with a much more accessible interface.
Most people will do what I did. They’ll give up, delete the app, order from somewhere else, and they won’t come back. Pizza lovers might drive miles out of their way for a favorite pizza, but digital frustration is another story entirely.
In the average customer’s mind, anything built for convenience should never cause frustration. That which is meant to take a minute should never take ten.
How much harder must it be for the 25% of the population with disabilities, for whom digital barriers are an everyday occurrence?
The average user might slog through a site that is not keyboard accessible. Blind users and sighted keyboard users cannot slog. They are locked out completely. Some people can guess what an unlabeled icon means. Many others need actual text labels to identify fields and buttons. Without such accessibility essentials as keyboard functionality and clear text labeling, your site is not merely inconvenient. It is unusable.
Accessibility Is Basic User Experience Design
Too often accessibility is dismissed as a thing apart, either an annoying legal requirement or something that is done to help “those disabled people over there.”
But accessibility is far more fundamental than that. It is building things your customers can use quickly, easily, and intuitively.
- Clear navigation
- Predictable workflows
- Error messages that actually help the user recover
- Design that does not overload the senses or require superhuman precision to complete a task
These things are considered accessibility features. They are also essential parts of a good user experience, one which makes your customers want to order your pizza after a long hard day because they know the process will be simple.
The Market You Can Capture
When leaders view accessibility as integral to customer experience and employee productivity, not merely an afterthought, the ROI becomes obvious.
Let’s talk numbers:
- 1 in 4 U.S. adults has a disability (CDC).
- Together, people with disabilities control $490 billion in disposable income in the U.S. alone (American Institutes for Research).
- This does not include seniors, who have much higher rates of disability and arguably less tech frustration tolerance than digital natives. Real Life Access estimates the real figure to be closer to $1.5 trillion.
- Globally, when you add family and friends who influence purchases, the disability market represents $13 trillion in annual disposable income (Return on Disability Group).
- 71% of customers with disabilities will abandon a website that is not accessible (Purple).
If your digital touchpoints are inaccessible, you are not just risking legal exposure. You are shutting the door on one of the largest, fastest-growing markets in the world.
Hidden Costs You’re Already Paying
Inaccessibility doesn’t just drive away customers. It also impacts:
- Brand reputation – Today’s consumers expect inclusivity. One inaccessible interaction can go viral for all the wrong reasons.
- SEO and discoverability – Search algorithms favor accessible, well-structured sites. Barriers hurt your rankings before a human ever visits your page.
- Employee productivity – Inaccessible internal tools create friction, burnout, and turnover, especially in hybrid workplaces.
- Recruiting and retention – The best candidates will not apply if your application system locks them out. Nor will they stay if your workplace systems make it impossible for them to do their jobs.
The result? Lost customers. Lost employees. Lost market share. And most businesses don’t even realize they are missing out.
The ROI of Accessibility
The upside is just as clear. Accessibility doesn’t just prevent loss. It creates opportunities. Companies that integrate accessibility see measurable returns:
- A Forrester study found that accessible websites increased customer reach, reduced abandonment, and improved SEO.
- Accenture reported that companies prioritizing inclusivity have 28% higher revenue and 2x net income compared to peers.
- Forrester research shows that for every $1 invested in accessibility and UX, companies can see up to $100 in return. That is not just compliance insurance. It is growth, retention, SEO, and brand loyalty rolled into one.
Accessibility as Strategy, Not Afterthought
So what does accessibility look like in practice?
- Customer experience – Streamlined checkout flows, alt text for images, logical navigation, voice-friendly design.
- Employee experience – Accessible HR platforms, collaboration tools that work with assistive technology, clear training resources.
- Culture – Moving beyond compliance to foster a workplace where difference is ordinary and talent is what matters.
Accessibility is not charity. It is not compliance theater. It is competitive advantage.
The Real Cost
The real cost of inaccessibility is not just the customers who abandon their carts or the employees who turn away. It is the opportunity cost.
Every abandoned cart is not just a $40 pizza order lost. It is a lifetime customer relationship cut short. Every qualified job applicant who bounces off your application portal is not just a missed hire. It is years of potential innovation and productivity walking straight into your competitor’s office.
Opportunity cost also shows up in:
- Market share you never gain because competitors made it easier to buy.
- Loyalty you never build because customers felt excluded once and never came back.
- Brand equity you never earn because word of mouth flows toward the companies that get accessibility right.
- Efficiency gains you never realize because your internal systems quietly wear down employees until they burn out or leave.
When you add it up, the real cost of inaccessibility is not the line item you see today. It is the compounding growth you never capture.
The organizations that will win in the next decade are those that remove barriers, both digital and cultural, and make their products, services, and workplaces usable by everyone.
Where to Start
If this feels daunting, you’re not alone. The good news is you don’t have to eat the entire elephant at once. Go for high-impact, easy wins first, and ride that momentum when tackling the rest.
- Identify your highest-impact customer touchpoints and remove obvious barriers
- Make accessibility part of every digital project’s success metrics
- Invest in training so your teams know what accessibility means in practice
- Involve people with disabilities in your testing and feedback loops
It’s not about perfection overnight. It’s about progress that compounds into long-term advantage.
I’m Here to Help
I’m Angela Fowler, Founder and CEO of Real Life Access. I help organizations cut through the compliance noise and build accessibility strategies that work—for real people and for your business.
If you want to stop leaving money and talent on the table, let’s talk.
👉 Visit the Real Life Access website
👉 Or book a call directly with me
References
Accenture. (2018). Getting to equal: The disability inclusion advantage. Accenture.
American Institutes for Research. (2018). A hidden market: The purchasing power of people with disabilities. AIR.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2023, May 15). Disability impacts all of us. CDC.
Forrester Research. (2019). The ROI of UX design and accessibility. Forrester Research. (Summary cited in TestParty.ai.)
Purple. (2019). The purple pound: The value of the disabled consumer. Purple.
Return on Disability Group. (2020). The global economics of disability annual report. Return on Disability.
UX Collective. (2020, October 22). Top 10 metrics to measure the ROI of web accessibility. Medium.
