30 May 2026 · 4 min read
The expensive-later list
Colour contrast, focus order, semantic structure, and form labelling are nearly free during design and build. Fixing them across a shipped product means touching every screen.
Custom components — dropdowns, modals, date pickers — are where most violations concentrate. Use accessible primitives instead of building from divs.
Test with the tools users use
Automated scanners catch perhaps a third of issues. Keyboard-only navigation and a screen reader pass catch most of the rest.
Add both to your release checklist. They take under an hour on a typical release.
It is also a legal question
Public-sector and enterprise procurement in the UK, EU, and US increasingly requires documented conformance. An inaccessible product is a disqualified bid.
Accessibility statements should be honest about known gaps and dated. A vague claim is worse than a specific limitation.
Where to go from here
If you are weighing accessibility conformance for an upcoming project, the useful next step is usually a short scoping conversation rather than a longer article. Bring your constraints — budget, timeline, existing systems, and the team you already have — and the decision usually resolves itself in an hour.
We run these as a fixed-scope discovery session with a written recommendation at the end, including the cases where our advice is that you do not need us.
Working on something like this?
Send us the brief. We will tell you what we would build, what we would cut, and roughly what it costs.
Talk to us