Make accessibility your default
Editor's note: Meryl K. Evans is an accessibility and inclusive experience strategist at meryl.net in Plano, Texas, with more than 20 years of experience helping marketing and UX research teams create more accessible, effective experiences across digital, communication and in‑person touchpoints. She holds the Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Competencies credential and is recognized as a LinkedIn Top Voice.
Designing for disabled people often creates solutions that work better for everyone and what begins as access for some quickly becomes usable for all. The same principle applies to research and marketing. When teams design with more people in mind from the start, they capture better data and reach more of the audience they’re trying to understand.
Most teams aren’t actively trying to exclude anyone. Yet many research and marketing practices quietly leave out large segments of the population. Sometimes it's people with permanent disabilities. Other times it's people in temporary or situational circumstances: someone watching a video in a noisy office; a parent carefully navigating steps with a stroller; a sick person who cannot take a phone call.
When people can’t participate or comfortably engage, the result is incomplete data, skewed insights and campaigns that fail to tell the real story. Not because the ideas are wrong but because the execution assumes a narrower audience than the one that exists.
The good news is that accessibility does not require special versions or extra work. When it's built in from the start, it makes the work easier for everyone and more effective overall.
Accessibility is already mainstream
Ramps were originally designed for wheelchair users. Yet anyone who has dragged a rolling suitcase, pushed a stroller or maneuvered a shopping cart knows the ramp is the obvious choice. No one stands at the bottom of a staircase with luggage and thinks, “I would rather carry this up the steps.”
Video captions follow the same pattern. An Ofcom study found that about 80% of people who use captions are not deaf or hard of hearing. They simply prefer captions because they make content easier to follow in noisy, quiet or multitasking environments.
Designing for a wider range of needs includes more people and creates experiences that work better for most users in more situations.
When defaults quietly exclude
Most exclusion in research and marketing comes from defaults, not intent. A researcher tried to recruit me for a study entirely by phone. They never provided their e-mail address, so I never followed up. After several missed calls, they finally e-mailed. When I explained that phone calls were not an option, they asked if someone in my household could take the call for me. That's when I broke up with the study and opted out.
The study lost a participant who could have contributed valuable insights. The team likely assumed they had a complete dataset. In reality, they had a dataset with a gaping hole.
And this isn't unusual. According to the Centers for Disease Control, more than one in four U.S. adults has a disability. If a study’s design makes it difficult or impossible for those participants to take part, the resulting data is structurally biased. Leaders make decisions based on the people who could participate, not the people who would have participated if the study had considered universal design.
A survey by digital experience accessibility company Fable asked disabled people what problems they encountered when trying to participate in market research. More than 20% reported that surveys, locations, sign-up processes, meetings or tools were not accessible or that researchers were uninformed or ableist. In other words, the barriers often appear before the research begins. When people can’t get past those barriers, the data falls short. And when the data falls short, the decisions do too.
When marketing misses the moment
The same pattern shows up in marketing. A team launches a video campaign with strong creative, clear messaging and a solid media plan. On paper, everything looks right. Yet performance lags. Watch-through rates are low. Shares are fewer than expected. Conversion fails to achieve projected numbers.
In one case, the culprit was simple: The videos had no captions. A large portion of the audience watched with the sound off. Not because they were deaf or hard of hearing but because they were in open offices, public transportation, waiting rooms or next to someone sleeping.
The campaign didn't fail because the message was wrong. It failed because the format assumed everyone had sound and could understand it. Once captions were added as a standard part of the workflow, engagement rates improved. Watch-through rates, shares and conversions all increased.
Those gains didn't come from a small subset of users with disabilities. They came from everyday people in everyday situations. Accessibility expanded reach not because of disability but because it removed friction.
Another example: an e-mail that looked clean and readable on desktop but became nearly illegible on mobile. In dark mode, the text melted into the background. Some mobile e-mail clients auto-invert colors in dark mode. If the design does not account for that, the message can become unreadable.
That's not a niche accessibility issue. It's a universal usability failure. If people cannot read the message, they can't respond to it.
The business case for accessibility
Many people often view accessibility as a compliance requirement or a moral imperative. It's both. But more importantly, it's a business advantage.
Research and design firm Return on Disability estimates that people with disabilities, plus their families and supporters, represent $18.3 trillion in global spending power, including $1.3 trillion in the United States alone. When research and marketing exclude disabled people, they leave money on the table.
From a cost perspective, IBM has reported that baking in accessibility from the start adds only 1% to 5% to project costs, while retrofitting later can add up to 30%. Inaccessible work creates extra work. Accessible work reduces rework.
Think about it this way. Your company plans to build a new office. It will, of course, have a sidewalk. The designer opts not to add a ramp to the sidewalk. After the building opens, the company receives a complaint from someone who couldn't get into the building. The company spends more money to fix the sidewalk to add a ramp.
The company was building something. Had it thought of accessibility and universal design from the beginning, it would've included ramps. It wouldn't add anything to the cost. And it prevents spending more money later to retrofit it.
For researchers, more-accessible studies mean more diverse participants, fewer silent drop-offs and data that better reflects the real audience. For marketers, more-accessible campaigns mean higher engagement, better performance across more contexts and devices and stronger brand perception among people who notice and appreciate inclusive design.
Instead of treating accessibility as a separate initiative, view it as a way to improve the quality and impact of the work already being done.
Disability is a spectrum, not a persona
One reason accessibility gets oversimplified is that disability is often treated as a single, uniform category. In reality, every disability is a spectrum.
Take deafness. A common assumption is that people born deaf are all fluent in sign language. The Census has found that fewer than 3% of deaf and hard of hearing people in the United States use sign language. Some sign, many don't. Some lip-read, some don't. Some use hearing devices, some don't. Some love haptics, some dislike them.
On a LinkedIn post about an app with haptics, one commenter wrote, “I speak for all deaf people when I say we don’t like haptics.” Many of us chimed in to say we love them.
If user research only includes one person who says, “I hate haptics,” and that voice is treated as representative, a team might remove haptic feedback from a product and alienate the many others who rely on or prefer it.
Inclusive research requires variety, not assumptions. It means intentionally recruiting participants with different communication preferences, access requirements and comfort levels. Otherwise, the data reflects the easiest-to-reach subset, not the full spectrum of users.
Who we design for shapes what we learn
Researchers often design studies for the people who are easiest to reach, not the people they most need input from – which is understandable under time and budget pressure but it comes with consequences.
In a travel study, for example, excluding disabled travelers because the method is phone-only or the location isn't accessible means missing a set of experiences that are often different from the norm. Those experiences can reveal pain points, workarounds and unmet needs that would never surface in a more homogeneous sample.
When participants share the same communication preferences, access to technology and comfort with standard formats, the resulting data is convenient but incomplete. It tells a partial story.
Who we design for shapes what we learn. If we design without accessibility in mind, we get convenient data, not comprehensive data. And convenient data is biased data.
Accessibility as a better default
Research and marketing often rely on forms as touchpoints. A single field can make the difference between someone completing the form or abandoning it.
For example, the phone number field can be a problem. Many forms require a phone number with no alternative. For people who avoid phone calls, whether because of hearing, anxiety, schedule constraints or simple preference, this can stop them from filling the form.
A more inclusive pattern is to require contact information but offer options. For example:
Preferred contact method (required):
- Text message
- Phone call
The form still ensures a reliable way to follow up. But it lets people choose the mode that works for them. This positions accessibility as part of process design, not just interface design.
How accessibility builds affinity
Accessibility does more than remove friction. It builds trust and affinity.
When a city council chamber renovation included large monitors with live captions, it sent a clear signal to people who rely on captions. That design choice didn't just make the space more usable. It created a positive story shared publicly in talks, articles, books and conversations.
Similarly, when a nonprofit turned on captions for an all-boards meeting without being asked, it communicated that accessibility was part of how the organization operates, not an exception. That kind of experience influences where people choose to volunteer, donate and invest their time.
For researchers and marketers, the takeaway is that people notice accessibility and universal design. People remember when they can fully participate without having to ask for special treatment. Over time, those experiences shape brand perception and loyalty.
Practical shifts for researchers
Accessibility in research doesn't require a complete overhaul. A few targeted shifts can significantly improve participant diversity and data quality.
- Offer at least two ways to participate. Always.
- Write instructions for skimmers, not just careful readers.
- Audit screeners for hidden filters.
- Test tools with assistive technology.
Practical shifts for marketers
Marketers can include accessibility as a standard part of their workflow without adding extra work or overhead.
- Make high-quality captions and transcripts standard.
- Check forms and landing pages for keyboard traps.
- Test content in dark mode, on small screens and in monochrome.
- Treat accessibility as part of the brand experience.
Progress over perfection
Teams may feel overwhelmed when they start thinking about accessibility and universal design. The gap between current practice and ideal practice can seem large. But accessibility moves forward through progress, not perfection.
Baking provides a useful analogy. What happens when someone bakes cupcakes and omits a tiny teaspoon of salt? Someone will notice. Sprinkling salt on top afterward won't fix the problem. And the cupcake ends up very salty. The salt must be mixed in from the beginning. And it will cost more to fix it. They have to buy more ingredients and spend time baking again.
Accessibility works the same way. Compensating at the end tends to be more expensive and less effective than tackling it from the start.
For research and marketing teams, progress over perfection can look like adding one more participation mode to the next study, making captions standard for the next campaign or auditing one high-impact form for accessibility issues.
Each improvement reduces friction, increases participation and moves the organization toward more inclusive defaults.
The ramp principle
At their core, accessibility and universal design remove friction so more people can participate, engage and ultimately convert, whether that means becoming customers, employees or loyal supporters.
It follows the same principle as the ramp: something built for a few becomes useful for all.
When research and marketing design with more people in mind from the beginning, they reach more of the people they’re trying to understand.
Studies capture a wider range of experiences. Data reflects the real world instead of the easiest slice of it. Campaigns perform better across more contexts and devices.
Accessibility and universal design strengthen research, sharpen insights and drive better business outcomes by removing the barriers that keep people out.