Beyond Compliance

The stark disparity between market reality and regulatory requirement has never been clearer: whilst only 4% of websites globally meet accessibility standards (WebAIM 2025), 25% of the population experiences some form of disability (Eurostat 2023). This fundamental misalignment reveals both the scale of current market failure and the magnitude of commercial opportunity ahead.

This reality formed the backdrop for a strategic roundtable discussion moderated by Piccia Neri on 8th July 2025, conducted just weeks after the European Accessibility Act's enforcement deadline. Rather than witnessing anticipated compliance scrambling, four industry leaders revealed a sector undergoing systematic transformation. Their perspectives, spanning inclusive design consultancy, corporate implementation, accessibility technology, and digital marketing, illuminate why this regulatory moment represents strategic opportunity rather than operational burden.

Yet the path forward remains complex. Whilst early adopters capture competitive advantages, significant implementation challenges persist across organisational structures, technical capabilities, and cultural mindsets. The revolution these leaders describe requires both strategic vision and practical execution in equal measure.

The Innovation Catalyst: Accessibility as Competitive Advantage

Aleksandra Melnikova from inclusive design agency Cosmic Velocity challenges the fundamental premise that accessibility constrains innovation. Through systematic work with both startups and multinational corporations, a compelling business reality emerges:

"It's so much more expensive to add it in the end, like then design with these things in mind and collaborate with engineers straight away, building things in a sustainable way."

Their approach eliminates the traditional accessibility "add-on" model entirely. "For our clients... What works is just including everything by default, just saying, this is how we work. If you want to work with us, that is our service offering," Melnikova explains. This methodology encompasses collaborative engineering relationships, inclusive user research, and systematic testing with disabled users.

The agency's ongoing research across eight countries reveals critical success factors: organisations achieving genuine accessibility transformation typically require individual champions driving cultural change, combined with proximity to lived experience perspectives. "In the companies that are truly driving it, it actually hinges on a person that has a vision that then educates other people and brings the standard."

However, this approach demands significant upfront investment in training, process redesign, and cultural transformation. Not all organisations possess the resources or commitment required for such comprehensive integration.

The Corporate Imperative: Risk Management to Strategic Advantage

Patrizia Bertini's corporate perspective, drawn from 25 years in accessibility advocacy and current leadership of accessibility programmes for global companies, reveals the internal mechanics of organisational transformation. Having authored Italy's first accessibility handbook in 2004, Bertini provides historical context for current developments.

Corporate motivations often begin with risk management:

"What I see is more all about, hey, let's try to be a little bit more in control and minimise our risk exposure rather than actually acknowledging that accessibility is simply... the right thing to do."

However, this initial compliance focus can evolve into genuine strategic thinking.

Based on her experience working with large companies, Bertini identifies compelling business arguments that transcend traditional ROI calculations. By focusing on customer retention rather than acquisition, organisations can build tangible business cases:

"If we say by making the website accessible, we increase retention by 5%, every organisation can really easily do a calculation of what that means."

For public sector clients, this figure could reach 10%, particularly given the EAA's provision for contract voidance (EAA overview), allowing customers to terminate agreements without penalty if services prove inaccessible. This mechanism transforms accessibility from nice-to-have feature to business-critical requirement.

Yet corporate implementation faces substantial obstacles. Legacy systems, entrenched processes, and competing budget priorities create significant friction. The transition from risk-driven compliance to value-driven strategy requires sustained leadership commitment that many organisations struggle to maintain.

The Technology Reality: Global Reach, Local Impact

Natalie MacLees, founder of accessibility testing tool Aardvark, provides crucial insights from the technology provider perspective. Her global client base illuminates a fundamental misunderstanding about the EAA's scope:

"The EAA doesn't apply just to companies that are based in the EU, but to anybody who's selling into the EU."

This user-centric approach represents a paradigmatic shift from location-based to service-based regulation. MacLees observes that even WordPress plugin developers now face global accessibility requirements, as their products inevitably serve European users regardless of development location.

Her experience with automated testing tools offers practical entry points for organisations beginning their accessibility journey:

"Use an automated tool, scan your site, your app, whatever it happens to be, and start to get a picture of what's there. That's not a complete picture, but it's a place to at least get started."

MacLees's perspective on the American litigation landscape provides sobering context for European approaches. The US enforcement mechanism, direct lawsuits rather than regulatory processes, has created what she terms "problems for accessibility professionals because it gives businesses this impression that accessibility is just a way to extort money from businesses and it's not actually something that's important."

Whilst technology solutions provide essential infrastructure, they cannot address the fundamental skills gap or cultural resistance that impede genuine accessibility implementation. Automated tools identify technical barriers but cannot solve strategic or organisational challenges.

The Marketing Transformation: Expanding Addressable Markets

Kay Moors brings dual expertise as Managing Director of digital agency DRUM and as a brain injury survivor, offering both professional marketing insight and lived experience perspective. Her 20-year agency experience reveals fundamental shifts in client motivations: organisations increasingly approach accessibility as growth opportunity rather than compliance requirement.

"The clients who go along... are on this journey with us because they want to be... it's not about compliance, it's not about these laws, but... the ones who... treat it as an opportunity... to spend the next five years getting better," Moors observes.

Her marketing perspective challenges narrow disability-focused framing, revealing expanded market opportunities through concrete demographics:

"There's 10 million non-native speakers in the UK (The Conversation, 2021 Census), There's 19% of the population are over 60 (Ageing Better, 2025), There's 600,000 new parents every year in England (BBC, 2024) and we all know what it's like when you've got a sleepy baby on your arm and you're trying to use a phone."

This broader understanding of accessibility benefits extends far beyond disability accommodation to encompass temporary limitations, situational constraints, and diverse user needs. Moors advocates for co-creation methodologies:

"Put disabled users at the centre of everything you do. Don't treat it as an afterthought or a legal risk... Co-create your products and services."

The marketing transformation faces its own constraints. Authentic co-creation requires sustained engagement with diverse user communities, demanding resources and expertise that many agencies lack. The shift from compliance messaging to authentic inclusion requires fundamental repositioning that challenges existing client relationships and business models.

Tangible Consequences: From Fines to Market Exclusion

The enforcement landscape provides concrete examples of both risks and opportunities. Spanish airline Vueling's recent €90,000 fine for screen reader inaccessibility demonstrates regulatory teeth (Aviation24, 2024), though the EAA's power extends beyond financial penalties to potential market exclusion.

The broader innovation story proves equally compelling. Bertini traces accessibility's role in mainstream technology adoption:

"If we are all using Alexa today is because someone decided to build and invest in a tool to help people to read aloud what they couldn't read otherwise... For us it's a choice, for other people it is not."

Voice interfaces, predictive text, gesture controls, technologies now ubiquitous in consumer products, often originated from accessibility needs before achieving mainstream adoption. This pattern suggests significant innovation potential for organisations embracing accessibility-first development approaches.

Cultural Transformation: Beyond Tick-Box Compliance

A central theme across all perspectives concerns the inadequacy of compliance-only approaches. Moors articulates this clearly:

"What I like about the directive is it's not based on WCAG... It is about user-centred and user testing and co-creation and co-design... unless you know why... Why is that criteria important? What barrier is it actually putting in place for people?"

This shift from procedural compliance to understanding-driven design represents the EAA's most significant cultural contribution. When organisations begin questioning why accessibility matters rather than simply what compliance requires, genuine transformation becomes possible.

The education deficit identified across all perspectives extends beyond formal institutions to professional development. Moors's university speaking experiences reveal systemic gaps:

"You mention accessibility to them and it's just a wall of blank faces because it's not set in the curriculum. So therefore we are putting designers, developers, marketers out there into the marketplace year on year with literally the most basic of training."

Cultural transformation remains the most challenging aspect of accessibility implementation. Whilst technical solutions can be purchased and processes can be documented, changing organisational mindsets requires sustained effort and significant resistance to embedded practices.

Market Dynamics: The Competitive Advantage of Inclusion

Market segmentation emerges between organisations embracing accessibility as growth opportunity versus those treating it as compliance burden. Moors identifies this dynamic clearly:

"The people that are revenue driven are the ones that are never going to be really accessible... What is going to be that market leader is the ones who take it further and continually improve."

This perspective suggests the EAA's true impact lies not in enforcement mechanisms but in creating market conditions where accessibility-first organisations gain sustainable competitive advantages. When accessibility becomes a differentiator rather than a baseline requirement, early adopters capture disproportionate value.

Practical First Steps: Four Pathways to Accessibility Awareness

Each panellist offered specific guidance for organisations seeking to develop genuine understanding of accessibility challenges and opportunities:

• Agency Perspective (Melnikova): "Test your product or service with real people and watch them use it. Watch them hear their stories, see how they fail the tasks that are meant to be easy for them and then get very, very scared and inspired by this experience."
• Corporate Strategy (Bertini): Employ experiential learning to build organisational empathy: "Put your screen on very low luminosity, forget about your mouse, try to navigate with your keyboard... Can you complete your action? So feel the pain."
• Technology Foundation (MacLees): Begin with automated scanning tools to establish baseline awareness of existing barriers, providing an accessible entry point for organisations to understand their current accessibility landscape before progressing to comprehensive assessment.
• Marketing Integration (Moors): Prioritise genuine co-creation with disabled users throughout the development process, transforming both product understanding and organisational culture whilst creating authentic market positioning.

These recommendations collectively emphasise that accessibility awareness must be experiential rather than theoretical. Organisations develop genuine commitment only when they witness or experience barriers firsthand.

Strategic Implications: Navigating Transformation in an Imperfect Market

The convergence of agency methodology, corporate strategy, technology solutions, and marketing expertise around accessibility suggests an industry approaching a transformation tipping point. When compliance requirements align with competitive advantages, sustainable change becomes inevitable.

Yet significant challenges remain. The 96% of websites that currently fail accessibility standards (WebAIM 2025) represent not just opportunity but systemic market failure requiring coordinated response across multiple stakeholders. Technical solutions alone cannot address cultural resistance, skills gaps, or resource constraints that impede genuine progress.

Perhaps most significantly, lived experience perspectives are moving from periphery to centre in product development conversations. This shift, driven by both regulatory requirements and business logic, suggests a future where inclusive design becomes simply good design.

The revolution these accessibility leaders describe requires sustained commitment across organisational levels. Their collective experience indicates that organisations embracing this transformation early will find themselves not merely compliant, but genuinely competitive in an increasingly inclusive digital marketplace. However, the path demands both strategic vision and operational excellence, acknowledging that meaningful change requires time, resources, and unwavering commitment to principles beyond immediate commercial returns.

The question for leaders becomes not whether to invest in accessibility, but how systematically they can transform compliance requirements into competitive advantages whilst navigating the practical constraints of implementation. In a market where transformation is both urgent and complex, the strategic opportunity for thoughtful early movers appears both substantial and demanding.