Industry

But even for companies that have been investing time, money, and resources into ensuring products don’t have barriers, we’re still in the stage of old-school marketing claims when it comes to accessibility. The industry still hasn’t embraced a fact-based, verifiable way of proving a product’s accessibility — or how one product is better than another.

Barriers like these don’t just affect the individual: If someone can’t prepare their meals or do their own laundry, the burden is pushed onto others in the household. Poor choices in product design can — and do — have a lasting impact on people with disabilities and their autonomy.

These experiences are shared widely in social media, often by disabled influencers. You’ll find entire video channels devoted to reviewing the accessibility of products while sharing workarounds or brands to avoid.

For manufacturers, retailers, or other businesses, accessibility barriers can be reputation wreckers.

SAR is a member organization developing standards to provide transparent, fact-based scoring of the accessibility of everyday products. It will allow firms that do invest in accessibility to showcase their advantage over competitors.

Business bulk purchasers can and will use the same standards to ensure that products will work for their employees and customers who have disabilities: a city’s website, a school district’s mobile app, thermostats in hotel rooms, express kiosks for a fast-food chain, and so on.

What will be of more value to those in the position to decide on a purchase? Is it a marketing claim, or a marketing fact?

A product’s design can create barriers that make it difficult, or even impossible, for people with disabilities to use. This isn’t just a problem for a few isolated folks; it affects entire segments of the population.

New barriers often come with newer technologies that look nicer but are harder to use. For instance, many devices like elevators, food ordering kiosks, washing machines, and microwaves now use glass screens or digital displays instead of buttons you can push. Because these screens and displays don’t have a controls that you can feel, blind people can’t use them.

Customers want to be able to know before they buy if a product is accessible—in a reliable way that they can trust. But does that exist today?

Barriers to use by people with disabilties don’t just affect the individual: If someone can’t prepare their meals or do their own laundry, the burden is pushed onto others in the household. Poor choices in product design can—and do—have a lasting impact on people with disabilities and their autonomy.

These experiences are shared widely in social media, often by disabled influencers. You’ll find entire video channels devoted to reviewing the accessibility of products while sharing workarounds or brands to avoid.

Brands can improve their reputation by building products to be more accessible, a path that’s overlooked by most manufacturers. With the introduction of reporting standards, accessibility will be regarded as a mark of product quality. For manufacturers, retailers, or other businesses, persistent accessibility barriers are more likely to be reputation wreckers.

Many in industry are advocating for a better world for people with disabilities. For a long time, we have heard the phrase “levelling the playing field”. The intonation is that the game is currently unfair. But, how can we even start to level the playing field if haven’t even come up with an agreed-upon scoreboard?

If Team A has a B+ accessibility score, and Team B has 87%, who is winning? Who has the marketing edge?

It’s a question that many advocates have asked themselves. If you work in the accessibility field, you know that we’ve come a long way in developing testing techniques — but it’s still not enough. Testing and reporting are still not standardized enough to make comparisons.

The majority of today’s websites, apps, and everyday tech products still remain inaccessible to people with disabilties.

Industry and advocates can join together and help to create the scoreboard. Standard Accessibility Reporting is a non-profit organization where members have a voice in determining the accessibility of tomorrow’s products.

Our team includes people who are developing better test reporting methods for accessibility. Our members include organizations such as nonprofits, university groups, and industry associations. Our individual members are professionals who have a stake in standardized reporting of accessibility.

We invite you to participate in the process and to support the development of these standards.