We talk a lot about taxes in the UK. Income tax, council tax, VAT. But there is another tax that millions of people pay every day, and most business owners don’t even know it exists.
It is the “Disability Tax”.
I don’t mean the government is taking money out of people’s wages. I mean the extra time, frustration, and effort that disabled people have to spend just to do simple things online.
Imagine you are trying to buy a birthday present. You find the perfect item, you go to the checkout, but the “Pay Now” button doesn’t work. You press it ten times. Nothing happens. Eventually, you give up and go to another shop.
For a disabled user, this isn’t a one-off technical glitch. It happens constantly.
Scope found that disabled people are 50% more likely to face barriers when using online services than non-disabled people.
At Site Design Squad, we believe the web should be for everyone. Here is why this hidden tax is bad for people, bad for business, and how we can work together to get rid of it.
It is costing you money (The Click-Away Pound)
If you run a business, you might think accessibility is just a “nice to have” feature. You might think you don’t have many disabled customers.
The numbers disagree.
When a website is hard to use, people don’t complain. They just leave. In fact, 71% of users with disabilities will leave a website that is difficult to use.
That is a huge number of potential sales walking out the door because a menu was hard to read or a form was impossible to fill in.
It goes the other way too. A massive 86% of users with disabilities have chosen to pay more for a product from an accessible website rather than buy the same product for less from a website that was harder to use .
People will literally pay a premium for a hassle-free experience.
What does an inaccessible site actually look like?
You might look at your website and think it looks fine. But accessibility issues are often invisible if you don’t know what to look for.
Here are a few common offenders we see when we audit sites:
- The “Click Here” Mystery If you are using a screen reader (software that reads the page out loud), hearing “Click Here” five times in a row is useless. Links need to say where they are going, like “Read our About page”.
- The Grey-on-Grey Trend Designers love making things look sleek with light grey text. But if you are visually impaired or looking at your phone in bright sunlight, that text is invisible.
- The Mouse Trap Some people can’t use a mouse. They use a keyboard to tab through the site. If your website only works with a mouse, you have effectively locked the door on them.
- “Fat Fingering”: Usually when people think of fat fingering accidentally pressing the wrong button when using your phones keyboard. But it also happens when elements are too close together, causing the user to press the wrong thing. This is also a real struggle for disabled people, who have issues with their hands (e.g. arthritis) as well as elderly folk.
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Our Mission: The Web is for Everyone
When we started Site Design Squad, we saw that many brilliant local businesses, from tradespeople to hairdressers, had websites that didn’t do them justice.
Often, these sites were completely inaccessible to some disabled people.
We don’t think that is right. We agree with Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the Web, who said that “Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect” .
That is why we build sites with accessibility in mind from the start. It isn’t an expensive add-on or an afterthought. It is just how we build.
How we fix it (without the high cost)
We know why a lot of small businesses have inaccessible sites. It is usually because professional, custom-coded web design feels too expensive. They try to DIY things to go with a low cost agency, that doesn’t design with accessibility in mind.
We wanted to change that.
We introduced a model that helps make web design affordable. Instead of paying thousands of pounds upfront, our clients pay a simple monthly fee. But no just for web design.
Our website plans also include the hosting, and the ongoing care. It lowers the barrier for small businesses. It means you can afford a professional website that was designed with accessibility as well as being optimised for lead generation. A website that works for you, and your customers.
We are not just building websites. We are trying to remove the hurdles that stop people from succeeding online.
A Quick Check You Can Do Today
You don’t need to be a technical wizard to check your own site. Try this simple test:
Put your mouse to the side. Can you navigate your website using only the Tab key on your keyboard? It should highlight sections with a box, sort of like this animation below where the navigation bar on the website is highlighted as the user tabs through menu each option.
Can you reach important parts of your website such as the contact form? Can you hit the submit button?
If you can’t, it is likely that a large portion of your potential customers can’t either.
If you are worried your site might be turning customers away, let’s have a chat.
