Digital Accessibility companies love to recite the statistic that 20% of people in the United States have a disability (it’s actually 28.7% according to this CDC post). They’ll use this stat to imply that if you don’t make your website accessible, you’re missing out on 20% of customers, 20% of revenue, etc.
Obviously, this is not the case.
There’s a false equivalency here. Just because 20% of people are reported to have a disability, it doesn’t mean that disability prevents the entire demographic from accessing websites and other digital assets.
After all, someone can have a disability and access a website, mobile app, or other online content just fine.
For example, looking at the statistics posted on CDC.gov page, 12.2 percent of U.S. adults have a mobility disability with serious difficulty walking or climbing stairs.
A mobility disability can certainly impact web usage, but it doesn’t necessarily have to.
Similarly, other disabilities can impact web use to a degree, but not to where access is significantly impacted.
And that’s the problem with this narrative: it’s an ongoing lie for the sake of sales.
“Did you know you’re potentially missing out of 20% of customers because your website isn’t accessible?”
It’s completely unnecessary to mislead consumers in this way. We don’t need to inflate the percentage higher to make a point, a point has already been made.
In fact, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is an ongoing reminder that equal access is a civil right in the United States and it is important to ensure that people with disabilites have access too.
Of course, there are millions of Americans who cannot access digital experiences or have difficulty in doing due to a lack of accessibility, but the number isn’t as high as what many accessibility companies say it is.
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