What is Accessibility?

Accessibility means building products everyone can use, including people with disabilities. That’s the seventh definition in the startup dictionary, and it’s bigger than compliance.

How does accessibility work?

Accessible products work with screen readers, keyboards, captions, and high-contrast displays. The playbook is WCAG, the web standard that grades whether content is perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust.

Why does accessibility matter?

About 1.3 billion people, roughly 1 in 6 of us, live with a significant disability. That’s a market, not an edge case. Accessible design also helps everyone else: captions in loud rooms, contrast in sunlight, keyboards when the trackpad dies. And inaccessible sites invite lawsuits.

Where did accessibility come from?

The W3C launched its Web Accessibility Initiative in 1997 and published WCAG in 1999. Curb cuts came first though: ramps built for wheelchairs turned out to help strollers, carts, and everyone else. The web borrowed the lesson.

How do you build accessibility well?

Start early, because retrofits are expensive. Use semantic HTML, label your buttons, caption your videos, and test with a keyboard only. Then keep testing with real users, because the checklist is the floor, not the ceiling.

Bottom line: accessibility is not a feature. It’s whether your product works for the whole market.

For more startup terminology, visit startupdefinitions.com.