Nirho
@nirho.bsky.social
Private Pilot, Digital Accessibility consultant.
www.NirA11y.com
www.NirA11y.com
Full post: www.nira11y.com/post/the-5th...
The 5th Motivation for Accessibility: Brand and Marketing - The Binary Choice
This is why accessibility colors your brand with such positive perception, and rightfully so. When you make your products accessible, you're demonstrating core values that customers want to align with...
www.nira11y.com
September 21, 2025 at 11:27 AM
Full post: www.nira11y.com/post/the-5th...
This builds on the foundational four motivations: market expansion, product improvement, legal compliance, and ethical imperatives.
What examples have you observed of companies successfully leveraging inclusive design for brand advantage?
What examples have you observed of companies successfully leveraging inclusive design for brand advantage?
September 21, 2025 at 11:27 AM
This builds on the foundational four motivations: market expansion, product improvement, legal compliance, and ethical imperatives.
What examples have you observed of companies successfully leveraging inclusive design for brand advantage?
What examples have you observed of companies successfully leveraging inclusive design for brand advantage?
Strategic opportunity:
While competitors treat accessibility as compliance overhead, forward-thinking organisations position it as competitive differentiation and authentic brand storytelling.
While competitors treat accessibility as compliance overhead, forward-thinking organisations position it as competitive differentiation and authentic brand storytelling.
September 21, 2025 at 11:27 AM
Strategic opportunity:
While competitors treat accessibility as compliance overhead, forward-thinking organisations position it as competitive differentiation and authentic brand storytelling.
While competitors treat accessibility as compliance overhead, forward-thinking organisations position it as competitive differentiation and authentic brand storytelling.
Domino's Pizza fought accessibility compliance through six years of litigation rather than addressing basic website barriers. Result: significant reputational damage and legal costs.
September 21, 2025 at 11:27 AM
Domino's Pizza fought accessibility compliance through six years of litigation rather than addressing basic website barriers. Result: significant reputational damage and legal costs.
Case examples:
@Apple positions accessibility features as innovation showcases, demonstrating technology enabling creative expression. Result: brand differentiation and market leadership in inclusion values.
@Apple positions accessibility features as innovation showcases, demonstrating technology enabling creative expression. Result: brand differentiation and market leadership in inclusion values.
September 21, 2025 at 11:27 AM
Case examples:
@Apple positions accessibility features as innovation showcases, demonstrating technology enabling creative expression. Result: brand differentiation and market leadership in inclusion values.
@Apple positions accessibility features as innovation showcases, demonstrating technology enabling creative expression. Result: brand differentiation and market leadership in inclusion values.
Conversely, companies fighting accessibility face legal costs, reputational damage, and lost market share.
September 21, 2025 at 11:27 AM
Conversely, companies fighting accessibility face legal costs, reputational damage, and lost market share.
You cannot remain neutral on accessibility. Your brand is either:
Champions of inclusion
Barriers to access
Companies embracing accessibility gain loyal advocates from the disability community (17% of global population) plus socially conscious consumers.
Champions of inclusion
Barriers to access
Companies embracing accessibility gain loyal advocates from the disability community (17% of global population) plus socially conscious consumers.
September 21, 2025 at 11:27 AM
You cannot remain neutral on accessibility. Your brand is either:
Champions of inclusion
Barriers to access
Companies embracing accessibility gain loyal advocates from the disability community (17% of global population) plus socially conscious consumers.
Champions of inclusion
Barriers to access
Companies embracing accessibility gain loyal advocates from the disability community (17% of global population) plus socially conscious consumers.
Bottom line: Stop waiting for perfect AI. Start making it better.
The web won't become accessible through perfect audits of 1% of sites. It needs good-enough tools that work everywhere.
Full thoughts: www.nira11y.com/post/ai1y-ai...
9/9
The web won't become accessible through perfect audits of 1% of sites. It needs good-enough tools that work everywhere.
Full thoughts: www.nira11y.com/post/ai1y-ai...
9/9
AI1y (AI and A11y) – Part III: Can I Trust AI to Be Right 100% of the Time for Accessibility?
But here's what we often forget humans aren't perfect either. And humans make different kinds of mistakes that we've just gotten used to.
What are the odds you'll catch every missing alt tag across 10...
www.nira11y.com
September 8, 2025 at 1:19 PM
Bottom line: Stop waiting for perfect AI. Start making it better.
The web won't become accessible through perfect audits of 1% of sites. It needs good-enough tools that work everywhere.
Full thoughts: www.nira11y.com/post/ai1y-ai...
9/9
The web won't become accessible through perfect audits of 1% of sites. It needs good-enough tools that work everywhere.
Full thoughts: www.nira11y.com/post/ai1y-ai...
9/9
I don't know any serious tools claiming full AI accessibility audits yet.
But good tools with partial WCAG coverage exist and they're improving fast.
The bad tools making false claims? Yeah, those exist too.
8/9
But good tools with partial WCAG coverage exist and they're improving fast.
The bad tools making false claims? Yeah, those exist too.
8/9
September 8, 2025 at 1:19 PM
I don't know any serious tools claiming full AI accessibility audits yet.
But good tools with partial WCAG coverage exist and they're improving fast.
The bad tools making false claims? Yeah, those exist too.
8/9
But good tools with partial WCAG coverage exist and they're improving fast.
The bad tools making false claims? Yeah, those exist too.
8/9
The goal isn't blind trust in AI. It's:
Making AI tools better, faster
Integrating them into workflows
Catching issues that would never be found manually
Scaling accessibility to internet size
7/9
Making AI tools better, faster
Integrating them into workflows
Catching issues that would never be found manually
Scaling accessibility to internet size
7/9
September 8, 2025 at 1:19 PM
The goal isn't blind trust in AI. It's:
Making AI tools better, faster
Integrating them into workflows
Catching issues that would never be found manually
Scaling accessibility to internet size
7/9
Making AI tools better, faster
Integrating them into workflows
Catching issues that would never be found manually
Scaling accessibility to internet size
7/9
We're at the same moment with web accessibility.
Waiting for perfect AI = keeping the web broken for millions of people with disabilities.
Using improving AI = potential biggest accessibility breakthrough ever.
6/9
Waiting for perfect AI = keeping the web broken for millions of people with disabilities.
Using improving AI = potential biggest accessibility breakthrough ever.
6/9
September 8, 2025 at 1:19 PM
We're at the same moment with web accessibility.
Waiting for perfect AI = keeping the web broken for millions of people with disabilities.
Using improving AI = potential biggest accessibility breakthrough ever.
6/9
Waiting for perfect AI = keeping the web broken for millions of people with disabilities.
Using improving AI = potential biggest accessibility breakthrough ever.
6/9
Think about the self-driving car debate:
People worry about AI edge cases while humans crash constantly from texting, drinking, fatigue.
Tesla's already much safer than human drivers. Not perfect, but better.
5/9
www.tesla.com/VehicleSafet...
People worry about AI edge cases while humans crash constantly from texting, drinking, fatigue.
Tesla's already much safer than human drivers. Not perfect, but better.
5/9
www.tesla.com/VehicleSafet...
www.tesla.com
September 8, 2025 at 1:19 PM
Think about the self-driving car debate:
People worry about AI edge cases while humans crash constantly from texting, drinking, fatigue.
Tesla's already much safer than human drivers. Not perfect, but better.
5/9
www.tesla.com/VehicleSafet...
People worry about AI edge cases while humans crash constantly from texting, drinking, fatigue.
Tesla's already much safer than human drivers. Not perfect, but better.
5/9
www.tesla.com/VehicleSafet...
What really excites me: every time we correct an AI mistake, it gets better for EVERYONE using that system.
That's accessibility at scale. Not one site at a time, but millions of sites.
Same challenge I worked on at Wix.
4/9
That's accessibility at scale. Not one site at a time, but millions of sites.
Same challenge I worked on at Wix.
4/9
September 8, 2025 at 1:19 PM
What really excites me: every time we correct an AI mistake, it gets better for EVERYONE using that system.
That's accessibility at scale. Not one site at a time, but millions of sites.
Same challenge I worked on at Wix.
4/9
That's accessibility at scale. Not one site at a time, but millions of sites.
Same challenge I worked on at Wix.
4/9
Reality check: Most websites NEVER get accessibility audits at all.
So AI tools that are "only" 95% accurate could help way more people than perfect human audits that only happen on a tiny fraction of sites.
3/9
So AI tools that are "only" 95% accurate could help way more people than perfect human audits that only happen on a tiny fraction of sites.
3/9
September 8, 2025 at 1:19 PM
Reality check: Most websites NEVER get accessibility audits at all.
So AI tools that are "only" 95% accurate could help way more people than perfect human audits that only happen on a tiny fraction of sites.
3/9
So AI tools that are "only" 95% accurate could help way more people than perfect human audits that only happen on a tiny fraction of sites.
3/9
Here's what I've been thinking about:
AI isn't perfect, but it's improving incredibly fast. Human accuracy? Pretty much stays the same.
And honestly? Humans make plenty of mistakes too - we just don't talk about them as much.
2/9
AI isn't perfect, but it's improving incredibly fast. Human accuracy? Pretty much stays the same.
And honestly? Humans make plenty of mistakes too - we just don't talk about them as much.
2/9
September 8, 2025 at 1:19 PM
Here's what I've been thinking about:
AI isn't perfect, but it's improving incredibly fast. Human accuracy? Pretty much stays the same.
And honestly? Humans make plenty of mistakes too - we just don't talk about them as much.
2/9
AI isn't perfect, but it's improving incredibly fast. Human accuracy? Pretty much stays the same.
And honestly? Humans make plenty of mistakes too - we just don't talk about them as much.
2/9
Wrote about this in Part I of my A11M series on accessibility and LLMs: open.substack.com/pub/nira11y/...
Curious about your thoughts on accessibility in an AI-mediated web.
#Accessibility #AI #WebAccessibility #LLM #a11y
Curious about your thoughts on accessibility in an AI-mediated web.
#Accessibility #AI #WebAccessibility #LLM #a11y
A11M - Part I
on A11y and LLMs
open.substack.com
August 14, 2025 at 12:28 PM
Wrote about this in Part I of my A11M series on accessibility and LLMs: open.substack.com/pub/nira11y/...
Curious about your thoughts on accessibility in an AI-mediated web.
#Accessibility #AI #WebAccessibility #LLM #a11y
Curious about your thoughts on accessibility in an AI-mediated web.
#Accessibility #AI #WebAccessibility #LLM #a11y
I'm not suggesting accessibility becomes less important, but trying to understand what it means when websites become information repositories accessed mainly through AI. Should WCAG and other guidelines adapt?
August 14, 2025 at 12:28 PM
I'm not suggesting accessibility becomes less important, but trying to understand what it means when websites become information repositories accessed mainly through AI. Should WCAG and other guidelines adapt?
Now LLMs can browse and extract information from websites for us, even from inaccessible ones. If users primarily access web content through AI chat rather than visiting sites directly, what does this mean for accessibility?
August 14, 2025 at 12:28 PM
Now LLMs can browse and extract information from websites for us, even from inaccessible ones. If users primarily access web content through AI chat rather than visiting sites directly, what does this mean for accessibility?
We've spent years solving accessibility for web innovations: alt text for images, captions for videos, reduced motion for animations. Yet 95% of websites still have accessibility barriers.
August 14, 2025 at 12:28 PM
We've spent years solving accessibility for web innovations: alt text for images, captions for videos, reduced motion for animations. Yet 95% of websites still have accessibility barriers.
Chat interfaces take us back to the web's text-based origins. The content written in those early days can be fully consumed with any screen reader, operated with keyboard navigation, and is actually fully accessible according to any standard we have today.
August 14, 2025 at 12:28 PM
Chat interfaces take us back to the web's text-based origins. The content written in those early days can be fully consumed with any screen reader, operated with keyboard navigation, and is actually fully accessible according to any standard we have today.