Summary
<scenario>
You're talking to your client, and you present them with two quotes. One for a standard website, and another for an accessible website. The client looks at the difference in costs, and asks for the standard website. What do you do?
</scenario>
One of the most difficult aspects of making professional websites is getting clients to pay for accessibility. In the world of business, issues such as accessibility are usually low down on the agenda, and it's difficult to convince clients that they should stretch their budget to pay that little extra for an accessible website. Legislation has helped, but there are still companies out there that just don't get it. This article discusses ways of ensuring that your clients are prepared to pay that little extra. You've learnt your craft; it's now time to reap the rewards.
Author: Gez Lemon
There's a good chance that you're shocked to the core: disgusted, barely able to refrain from sending me an email (or making a comment), informing me that I'm an ignorant, parasitical, despicable scumbag. After all, why should your clients pay extra for accessibility? What will you do if they don't pay that extra? Add accessibility barriers?
Accessibility isn't something you sell as an alternative; building accessible websites is what separates you from those incapable of doing their job correctly. Anything else is immoral. It's what gives you a competitive advantage over your competitors. It lets your clients know that they are dealing with a professional company that will ensure their website is not only attractively promoting their corporate image, but is usable by the widest possible audience. Who wants a shop in the back street of some dingy town? Your clients want you to do what's right by them, not be scared off thinking that accessibility is some magical ingredient that's too expensive to implement.
People who try to sell accessibility as a more expensive option will typically argue one of the following points:
- Accessibility Requires Constant Testing
- I would have concerns about the methods used for testing, but that's a different issue. If you requested quotes from your local builders for an extension on your house, and you received two quotes from one of the builders: one where they ensured the walls were straight by using a spirit level, and another for a quick and dirty couple of walls, would you seriously consider the second option? Would you seriously consider using that builder? I would expect a professional to do a professional job, and not charge me extra to do their job correctly.
- Accessibility requires extra work
- In most cases, that extra work merely requires the designers and developers to be capable of doing their jobs properly, with hardly any consideration for accessibility. Most accessibility issues are the result of talentless designers showcasing their creative skills, talentless programmers showcasing their scripting skills, or talentless people showcasing their complete lack of talent. Occasionally, there may be situations where descriptive alternatives are required to describe complicated objects. It's somewhat easier than rocket science. It's somewhat easier than Occams's Razor science.
- Accessibility requires staff training
- See above.
- I'm a scumbag
- There's no arguing with them this time; they've got a point.
Category: Accessibility.
[client-pay-for-accessibility.php#comment1]
Couldn't agree more. It's the same idea as making clients pay for web standards...it's just what we should do, and in most cases the client shouldn't have to worry about it (or be given a choice: "table based, font sprinkled tag soup and inaccessible" or "standards based and accessible"). All they should know is that your work follows the latest best practices.
Posted by patrick h. lauke on
[client-pay-for-accessibility.php#comment2]
My employers include a cost for accessibility on all of our quotes. Clients that choose the accessible option receive the same website as those that do not. Not because all our websites are accessible but because none of them are. This isn't an unusual situation. We get to see our competitor's quotes and they also include an optional cost for accessibility and I've seen no evidence that our competitors understand accessibility.
I do my best but as I work in a team of developers that don't care the end result is appalling. There should be more awareness about these tactics. It would be good to get a quote where the client has chosen the accessible option but the website is not accessible and name and shame the company. I would put my company forward but I want to keep my job
Posted by Will on
[client-pay-for-accessibility.php#comment3]
Why give them the option in the first place. Yes, certain technologies and features are not accessible, but that can be worked around. Besides, giving them the choice only muddies the water.
Posted by Mike Abbott on
[client-pay-for-accessibility.php#comment4]
I never give them the option of an inaccessible site; typically I select my clients rather than them calling me, which makes a huge difference.
Posted by Robert Wellock on
[client-pay-for-accessibility.php#comment5]
Does accessibility actually cost more? discuss.
One argument goes along the lines that writing good web sites using standards should be the most natural and efficient way to produce code. Maintaing the site and repurposing content should be easier too. But we all know it isn't and to make sure it's really accessible always costs more, more testing, more thought, more ... well just more.
And you have to bid for the job, and there's a queue of spotties willing to do a job for 50 quid/day and regardless of Robert's (Wellock) view selecting clients and web developers is more of a mutual one sided thing than we'd like and the bills need paying at the end of the month.
Posted by Robert Campbell on
[client-pay-for-accessibility.php#comment6]
Thank you all for your comments.
Robert, what testing do you do, that you wouldn't bother with if you weren't worried about accessibility? Ever since personal computers were widely available, the computing industry has always had to deal with the fact that there is a queue of children prepared to do the job for a fraction of the cost of a professional company. Small upstarts may let their 14 year-old nephew build them a stock control system, but generally, companies go to professionals for a good reason - they want to be sure that their mission critical systems have been thoroughly designed, thoroughly tested, robust, and fully supported. The problem with the web is that most web development agencies' services aren't that much better than the 14-year old nephew's services. No one in this industry needs to compete with kids, they just need to be able to show that the service they offer is far better than they would get from a kid - a professional service.
I should just point out that I'm not casting aspersions on you, or anyone in particular; I'm merely referring to the general standard of web development/design at this point in time.
Posted by Gez on
[client-pay-for-accessibility.php#comment7]
I don't offer an option, but I do offer varying degrees of accessibility. Section 508/Level A is really my default site (though I think most meet AA, actually). If someone wanted a table-layout site I would refuse it -- I'm no whore. I do, however, try to educate and sell them, and give them reasons to make their site more accessible. And to, of course, pay extra for the higher level of accessibility with a guarantee of such, but that's if I do a good job of selling and educating.
I've never had anyone hire me to make an accessible or target-specific site, but they all seem pleased by the idea of my minimums and accessibility in general. One client at a time. There's still a wide world or web that needs fixing... one site at a time.
Posted by Mike Cherim on
[client-pay-for-accessibility.php#comment8]
Testing 1,2,3..
Testing is one of those areas which can become like a money pit and very fraught. It's a bit like security or reliability and fault tolerance, there's always more you can do if you have the time and money.
As a general rule we test aginst a 'set of browsers' agreed with the client, we include common forms of assisted readers LYNX etc. but we're not real users of those systems and we rely on common sense to interpret the outcomes. What I'd really like to do is employ someone especially to do testing from a realistic user prespective.
I'd have to say for the most part we rely heavily on our in house principles and tool kits to carry us through the majority of the tasks. i.e. no tables, accessible menus, CSS and HTML validation etc.
As for the professional vs the boss's nephew sales conundrum, don't get me wrong we always UP Sell, quality, reliability, accessibility, SEO performance etc. this all comes about from doing things properly and professionally. Accessibility is not sold as an add on but it does so often seem like Missionary Selling; like Mike says..selling and educating.
Posted by Robert Campbell on
[client-pay-for-accessibility.php#comment9]
As you are aware it's a small non-profit based hobby of mine not a profession - I'd feel insulted if people thought otherwise. Usually I do it for the love and tend to work with charities or small businesses so the monetary aspect or having a steady stream of clients isn't that important for me. Normally I ask for payments in kind, so really it was a bit of a wildcard reply but still valid.
I always test with people whom have disabilities I have no option in that arena.
Though the testing obviously involves; various User Agents, people with cognitive disabilities, various people with a range of sight-related problems, and of a variety of conditions. Luckily I have access to groups of people or friends who have various learning difficulties and other abilities, etc.
So to answer the question if I were considering a more commercial approach and didn't really care about web accessibility I'd just probably do whatever I felt like doing, and totally ignore semantics, CSS-P, x(ht)ml, browsers, or user feedback, etc.
Posted by Robert Wellock on
[client-pay-for-accessibility.php#comment10]
A frank answer, Robert, but I don't believe that would be the case. I only know you from accessibility circles, but I think it's clear you have a strong sense of integrity. The knowledge you have far outweighs what would be required to make a website accessible, even if the awareness or purpose was for your friends. As you've achieved that much as a hobbyist, and knowing you to be a person of integrity, I think you would have embraced web standards and all that goes with it (device independence, accessibility, etc) as your base practice.
Posted by Gez on
[client-pay-for-accessibility.php#comment11]
Possibly given time and experience, really don't know in 1999 when I started hand-rolling I misinterpreted 'Web Accessibility' to some extent I knew about it, and about WCAG by early 2000.
Though I probably didn't really fully appreciate the "diversity" - or the true meaning - in my early web mastering days and I did some rather strange things...
Posted by Robert Wellock on
[client-pay-for-accessibility.php#comment12]
Most of the website redesign that we get involved in is due to a near total lack of accessibility of the existing site.
And what is the commercial reason that triggers these site rebuilds? Google and search engines.
Once a client understands that their very pretty (and often expensive) website is invisible in search engines - that becomes the commercial catalyst for changing their site. And they won't generally make the same mistake twice if advised correctly. Overcoming a 'lack of accessibility' starts to over ride even the traditional design concerns.
Initially - most clients feel that their 100% flash and Javascript popup based site is very cool - and aren't prepared to change - until they realise they are unable to rank in a search engine.
Once the client fully understands the commercial implications the current technology is causing them - they become prepared to accept CSS based design (and search engine traffic) as a better option. And that's the driver that moves them towards fully embracing Web Standards and accessibility.
At least in my experience.
Posted by Chris Dimmock on
[client-pay-for-accessibility.php#comment13]
Good accessibility aware devs and designers are a rare breed.
Modern web design can be very challenging to translate into functional markup and CSS. It does take longer to make sure pages display correctly on various browsers. And time costs money. Often web developers don't have access to all the tools they require to get the job done, including all the versions of modern standards compliant browsers let alone the older browsers, they code 'blind' so to speak. So creating accessibility compliant sites is often a stressful process.
Also, we can spend ages creating accessbile pages for integration into a CMS only for the CMS company to badly integrate our work and therefore compromise the integrity of the code.
As a web developer I rant and rave about this all the time. It took 2 years to get a test bench (with JAWS) organised at one company I worked at. I made sure all the development team tested as they went along and we did create some very solid code. But the technology is constantly changing, a new OS upgrade, new patch, a new browser. It's a very very challenging environment. Then when you actually start to test sites using actual users, it becomes even more of a challenge because no person actually uses the computer in the same manner, whether disabled or not.
Posted by Sara Farina on
[client-pay-for-accessibility.php#comment14]
Surely the thing to do is offer clients two prices - one for an accessible design and one for an inaccessible design.
The inaccessible design price is double your standard price... If anyone goes for it you just get to earn extra money, and still code/mark-up the thing how you want anyway!
Posted by Rich Pedley on
[client-pay-for-accessibility.php#comment15]
I went to my local garage today to get the brake pads replaced on my car. Apparently, it's very difficult to get mechanics that know what they're doing, and what with all the different makes and models of cars you can get, it's impossible to know for sure whether the new pads would work. We compromised in the end, and they cut a hole in the floor that I could put my feet through to help slow the car down and attached rubber to the front of the car to help reduce the impact should I not be strong enough to stop it by foot power. I then went to a restaurant and had some baked beans on toast - I ordered a steak, but apparently, it's very difficult to find chefs that know what they're doing ...
Wouldn't it be a strange world if every profession had the same standards as web designers/developers?
Posted by AI on
[client-pay-for-accessibility.php#comment16]
In the Netherlands, there is an accessibility initiative that asks web developers to sign a declaration of intent to only create websites that conform to WCAG 1.0 level 1. Our company has signed that declaration of intent. We never offered our clients the choice of an inaccessible website anyway. We aim to produce quality websites, and accessibility is part of that. Just like we wouldn't intentionally create a buggy website, we won't create inaccessible websites either.
We often do offer an option for increased accessibility at level 2 or 3 at a higher cost. It depends on the client whether they choose to do that.
We always point out that better accessibility for people with disabilities generally means better usability for everyone and better findability in search engines. To our larger clients, we also point out that their buildings are wheelchair accessible which they think is the most logical thing in the world, and that making your website accessible is just as logical and fits into that policy.
In some cases, the websites we build need public funding and choosing for enhanced accessibility actually improves the chances of getting the money to build it.
Posted by Yvette Hoitink on
[client-pay-for-accessibility.php#comment17]
Hi Yvette,
I never realised that was the case in the Netherlands, but that's a brilliant idea. I wish there was an equivalent over here.
Posted by Gez on
[client-pay-for-accessibility.php#comment18]
A lot of the posts on this article suggest that making a Web site accessible does not increase the cost. A competent client would not believe that for a second, because of some very simple business principles, for example: (a) Any investment has to be paid for, and this applies as much to training as to equipment; (b) A more demanding requirement requires more demanding testing, because there are simply more points to test, and some tests may require specialised tools and / or training; (c) You get nowt for nowt.
It's quite easy to produce a search-engine-friendly site which is easy for non-disabled people to use but totally inaccessible: omit ALT text or insert brain-dead ALT text (useful ALT text takes thought and time, which have to be paid for); no LONGDESC pages for e.g. graphs (extra pages means extra $$$$); no skip links or only token skip links (to make them useful you have to work out a complete in-page navigation architecture, and implement it thoughtfully for each page); use TABLEs with only TR and TD (omit CAPTION, THEAD, TH, TBODY, TFOOT, TCOL); omit LABELs in FORMs (avoiding worries about uniqueness of IDs); no captions or transcripts for videos or other multimedia content; no worries about the differences between and deficiencies of various assistive tools (dealing with browser differences / defects is bad enough).
The laundry list in the last paragraph illustrates the additional development costs of accessibility. Then you have to add: testing costs; delivery time (especially the impact of testing - can you test accessibility properly without recruiting disabled people to do some of the testing?); management time; reduction in usability for non-disabled users because your pages are bloated by all that extra mark-up (previous paragraph), which may actually lose sales.
Most clients fall into one of 3 categories: (1) Government and charitable organisations which feel obliged to go for maximum accessibility (whatever that is); (2) Organisations which specifically sell to the disabled - they will want good accessibility for those in their target segments but not care about those with other disabilities (e.g. cognitive); (3) Organisations whose sites fall within the scope of current and anticipated accessibility regulations - they will mostly want just-acceptable compliance at minimum cost; (4) Clients with no interest in accessibility per se.
Back to Gez' original question:
That client's not going to pay extra for an accessible site. So you accept his / her instructions because: if you don't, someone else will; and you'll have lost any chance you might have had to influence the client's attitude.
Posted by Philip Chalmers on
[client-pay-for-accessibility.php#comment19]
A competent client may well be aware that this industry is swamped with people that don't know how to do their job properly. An even more competent client would probably prefer to deal with companies that not only know what they're doing, but do it a lot more competently than those guessing and feeling their way.
This has got to be the simplest profession in the world. There's hardly anything to learn - if I were a client, I certainly wouldn't pay for someone to get some training to learn how to do their job properly. I wouldn't entertain the idea of hiring a professional that thought that testing was putting themself out.
In this industry, nowt can be very expensive. Clients just don't know what they're paying for. Clever marketing people can make nowt sound like just what the client was after.
Posted by Gez on
[client-pay-for-accessibility.php#comment20]
Gez,
I'm sorry but your response is a big disappointment.
If, in your words, "There's hardly anything to learn", why did Joe Clark bother to write his book "Building Accessible Websites" (http://joeclark.org/book/sashay/serialization/)?
A few quotes from it:
[Implication: it's time-consuming and, no matter how much time and skill is put in, there's an irreducible risk of failure.]
[Joe Clark summarises his advice on text alternatives for images in 3 bullets, but the relevant page http://joeclark.org/book/sashay/serialization/Chapter06.html is 32 pages of A4 - try your browser's "Print Preview"]
[Only applies to very big sites, but now we're changing the data model and adding DB code!]
[TTY = speech translated to text, for the deaf].
So far it's just one-off development costs, but then we get on-going operating costs:
Posted by Philip Chalmers on
[client-pay-for-accessibility.php#comment21]
Hi Philip,
I hate it when that happens.
I suspect he wrote it to help people understand accessibility.
If someone read Joe's book and understood the underlying principles, I would be disappointed if they then charged me extra to cater for people with disabilities. I would be even more disappointed if they knew nothing of accessibility, and wanted to charge me extra for them to read Joe's book.
The whole point of this article was to highlight that there are countless (possibly more) design agencies that charge extra for accessibility, when they're not capable of delivering an accessible version when the client takes that option. If the client's lucky, they have the odd alt text in place. If I had a penny for every time I've personally witnessed this, I would nearly have a pound by now.
Posted by Gez on
[client-pay-for-accessibility.php#comment22]
Quite probably, like the cowboy builders and car mechanics mentioned above.
But that does not change the fact that it costs more to produce a genuinely accessible web site than a non-accessible web site for the reasons I mentioned.
Posted by Philip Chalmers on
[client-pay-for-accessibility.php#comment23]
Yes.
The reasons you stated above are based around the fact that developers either don't know what they're doing, or don't test their work as a minimum. Neither can be offered as a reasonable excuse from a professional. If a company knows nothing of accessibility, then there is a cost - there is the cost of training their staff to do their job properly. If a company understands accessibility, but prefers to knock out sub-standard websites because they can't be bothered taking the extra steps required to make it accessible to people with disabilities, which is usually a pretty simple process with the exception of captioning which can be time consuming, then there is no difference between the company and cowboy builders and mechanics.
If testing isn't part of a company's current process, then their quality assurance procedure obviously leaves a lot to be desired. Standards are notoriously low in this industry. This is an undisputable fact, and not something that I've just made up to piss you off. If you doubt that this is the case, examine the markup of the websites you visit and see for yourself.
In my opinion, anyone who puts websites together with no thought for accessibility is either ignorant, despicable, or both. I wouldn't credit those that believe accessibility is an opportunity to make money as being ignorant; it should be a minimum requirement. As a professional, there is no reason to build websites that are discriminatory, and re-training to learn how to do their job properly is a very weak argument if you're going to go on to claim that these people are worthy as being described as professionals.
Posted by Gez on
[client-pay-for-accessibility.php#comment24]
Gez,
I'm sorry, but you're still ignoring the main point. A non-accessible web site design has N features. An accessible version of the same design has N+M features. For example one of the additional features may be "all active elements (menus and other links, forms, etc.) in all pages will be easily usable from the keyboard".
Some of the additional M features are additional tags or attributes, and therefore increase the cost of coding compared with the non-accessible version. The increase may not be a large percentage, but it's non-zero.
I completely agree that responsible developers test their products. That means all of of the additional M features require additional testing - and for some features the additional testing will be of the same order of magnitude as testing for the whole of the non-accessible version. For example if one additional feature is "... will be easily usable from the keyboard" then some one has to test each active element in each page using only the keyboard - in addition to testing everything with the mouse.
The bottom line - as Joe Clark (quoted above) said, it's going to cost money.
Posted by Philip Chalmers on
[client-pay-for-accessibility.php#comment25]
With respect, Philip, I think it's you that is ignoring the main point.
How does your equation cater for redundant markup (R)? A non-accessible website is a fundamentally broken website, as it doesn't serve its audience well. The parameter M that you have added merely adds *required* elements and attributes. If anything, the formula for accessibility should be N - R, and R is typically far higher than the mandatory elements and attributes (M) from the companies that I refer to in this post. Truly accessible websites use minimal markup and control presentation with CSS to allow visitors to repurpose content to their preferences; do you honestly believe that it takes more time to write less markup than it does to write the table-based presentation rich trash that these companies typically knock out? There is also the cost of maintenance; maintaining badly written websites is difficult, whereas correctly built websites allow for site-wide changes from a single amendment.
And then there are search engines. A lot of accessibility is concerned with ensuring that content is machine readable so that it can be read correctly by assistive technology. Search engines send crawlers that have to make sense of web content, and the easier it is to read the content, the better search engines can index and rank websites. All alternative text and expanded text for abbreviations is included in their algorithms, and adds to the relevance for the page; the higher the search engine ranking, the better the exposure for the client.
It takes longer for an engineer to ensure that nuts are tightened to the correct torque. If an engineer considered that the time it took to ensure the correctness of their work wasn't worth it, the cost is potentially much more expensive, as it could cost lives. It's typically not that drastic with the web, but the cost of cutting corners at the expense of a particular section of your audience is also costly. Locking people out results in a loss of sales, and is damaging for public relations; not to mention that seriously inaccessible websites are illegal in many countries.
Your arguments are continually based around companies either not knowing what they're doing, or cannot be bothered to do their job correctly. In my view, that rules them out as being considered professional. All questions in this reply are rhetorical.
Posted by Gez on