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My profile picture taken in the summer Faisal Rahman

We Must Care About Accessibility

One in twelve, or 8% of men, and 1 in 200 women worldwide experience color vision deficiency, a condition more commonly known as color blindness. It is estimated that color vision deficiency affects around 300 million people worldwide — a very large number, even exceeding the population of Indonesia.

In 2016, the United Nations issued a non-binding resolution stating that “human rights that apply offline must also be protected online.” The implication of this resolution is that barriers to Internet access can be interpreted as a violation of human rights — a statement that, while non-binding, remains substantial. We all deserve equal access to opportunities and services regardless of our individual abilities, including in the digital world.

Web technology, along with many other interface platforms, is actually designed to be an inclusive and accessible platform. However, negligence in attending to accessibility — whether conscious or not — can create barriers for users with disabilities when accessing digital services.

What is Accessibility?

Accessibility (a11y) is the set of practices for building products and services that ensure as many people as possible can access them, regardless of their abilities or disabilities. By building in accessibility, even people with disabilities can have equal opportunity to access the products and services we create.

Accessibility focuses primarily on people with disabilities because designing services that accommodate people with disabilities ultimately benefits everyone. The analogy with physical infrastructure construction is very useful for illustrating this principle: for example, a ramp for wheelchair users that can also be used by stroller users or people carrying heavy luggage; another example, tactile paving or guiding blocks on train platforms intended to guide people with visual impairments can also serve as a safe boundary indicator for others; accessible toilets that can be used both by people with motor disabilities and by elderly users.

The same principle applies to building digital services — digital services built with accommodation for people with disabilities will benefit other users as well. For example, a web page built with attention to HTML semantic standards will make it easier for all users to navigate and understand its content.

Just as with physical infrastructure construction, accessibility in digital services requires investment that is often significant. Even so, the investment in accessibility yields benefits that are no less significant.

Why Accessibility Matters

Accessibility and disability are two inseparable things. The WHO estimates there are 1.3 billion people worldwide living with some form of disability. In Indonesia alone there are approximately 28 million people with disabilities, or around 10.4% of the population.

The classification of disabilities is very broad. Disabilities can be congenital or present from birth, such as color vision deficiency; or acquired during life, such as hearing loss that comes with age. Disabilities can also be permanent or temporary — an example of a temporary disability is an injury to a limb. Beyond physical limitations, cognitive disabilities, mental health conditions, speech and communication impairments, and age-related decline in bodily function are also classified as disabilities.

As an illustration, let’s look at Japan. Japan has an aging demographic — as of 2023 around 30% of its population is aged 65 and above. Furthermore, Internet usage penetration among those aged 80 and above reaches 36.4%. In line with these facts, in a meeting with Apple’s accessibility specialists that the author attended, they revealed that one of the most frequently requested accessibility features is text magnification (zoom). The same lesson seems applicable everywhere, as the generations that are connected to the Internet continue to age.

Disability is part of being human. Delivering accessibility and accommodating users with disabilities is the morally right thing to do. Doing the opposite is discriminatory — disability should not be a barrier to accessing services, whether in the physical or digital world. Indeed, in many parts of the world this value is upheld through binding legal regulation.

The European Union has the European Accessibility Act (EAA), ratified in 2019, which began taking effect in June 2025. The legislation covers a wide range of digital services, from websites and mobile applications to online banking, audiovisual media services, e-books, and public transportation services. In essence, the legislation sets accessibility standards for these digital services and stipulates that non-compliance with those standards can result in penalties.

In the United States, there are two pieces of accessibility-related legislation: the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act. The ADA is a broad law that prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in public spaces. The ADA does not explicitly mention digital services, but there is already significant legal precedent from court cases that have applied the ADA to digital discrimination cases.

One of the well-known cases that set a precedent for ADA jurisdiction in digital services is Domino’s Pizza, LLC v. Robles. In 2016, Guillermo Robles sued Domino’s Pizza for the inaccessibility of its website and mobile app ordering service. Robles argued that online ordering is an extension of Domino’s physical restaurant service, and therefore the ADA applies to it. Domino’s argued that the ADA does not apply to websites because the ADA does not specify technical standards to comply with. Initially the district court sided with Domino’s argument, but the appeals court at the Ninth Circuit overturned that ruling and found in favor of Robles. This case became an important precedent for digital accessibility in the United States, as the court’s ruling implied that the ADA applies to digital products as well.

Meanwhile, Section 508 covers federal institutions and their contractors. The difference is that Section 508 explicitly cites the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 2.00 level AA as the standard to comply with. Violations of Section 508 can result in administrative sanctions and financial penalties for contractors.

Beyond the European Union and the United States, many other countries have similar regulations — including Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, South Korea, and many others. The trend shows that awareness of accessibility is increasing worldwide, and more and more countries will introduce their own accessibility regulations. One fairly consistent pattern is that these regulations frequently reference WCAG for accessibility assessment and compliance.

In conclusion: first and foremost, delivering accessibility and inclusive services is the right thing to do. Beyond that, accessibility can help us expand our user reach — in addition to people with disabilities, we can also reach aging user demographics. Lastly and most tangibly, it helps us avoid legal risk from operating a discriminatory service. We should devote greater attention to accessibility, in order to realize an inclusive digital world accessible to everyone.

Let’s discuss the technical aspects of delivering accessibility in the next installment!

References and Further Reading

Post Script: The Author’s Personal Notes on Accessibility

There are several catalysts that inspired the author to study and pursue accessibility in their capacity as a software engineer.

The first was the author’s application process to a global company that failed at a later stage due to unfamiliarity with the concept of accessibility. This was the beginning of the author’s comprehensive introduction to accessibility as a concept — previously having only dabbled in sporadic techniques.

Then, a few years ago, the author discovered that their late grandfather, who was then over 80 years old, was required to visit a pension office to check in. Failure to do so would result in his pension funds — one of his main sources of income — being withheld and discontinued. Upon investigation, it turned out that this mandatory check-in was implemented to combat fraud in which beneficiaries had already passed away but their pension benefits were still being drawn. By requiring an in-person check-in, beneficiaries were proving that their pension benefits were still legitimate.

Sometimes in rain, sometimes under the scorching sun, the author’s grandfather — who already had difficulty even walking and needed a cane — had to come in to check in. He was not alone either; there were many fellow beneficiaries of similar age who also came in and had to queue in a tent set up outside the office. The author strongly criticized this system, which was designed without considering that many of its users were of very advanced age. Such is what happens when a system — in this case an offline process — is designed without empathy, let alone any consideration for accessibility.

A few years later, this “authentication” system was modernized into an app-based process. This time, the author witnessed their late father being required to check in on the app every month. The way the system authenticated users was by giving a series of instructions while recording the user’s face, to confirm that the beneficiary was still alive.

One of the instructions was to blink. The author’s father, who was then over 70 years old and had suffered a stroke, struggled even to open his eyes. As a result, every month the authentication process would take hours in front of the device screen — a process that caused stress and frustration for both the user and their family. These two experiences opened the author’s eyes to the fact that accessibility is not merely a matter of technical implementation, but at its core is about empathy for our fellow human beings.