Every Step Counts: Designing Customer Experiences with Accessibility at the Core

Brands don’t get second chances when people feel left out. In the push to serve broader audiences, accessibility often becomes a checkbox—tacked on at the end of a product roadmap or buried under buzzwords like “inclusive design.” But for the millions of customers navigating disabilities, impairments, or temporary limitations, that checkbox can mean the difference between participating and being shut out. Building a more accessible experience isn't about optional features or altruism—it’s the foundation of good business, empathetic design, and smart strategy.

Stop Designing for an Imaginary Average

So much of the modern user experience is crafted around a hypothetical, frictionless consumer. This imaginary customer sees clearly, hears well, types quickly, scrolls easily, and understands instructions the first time. But real people are more complex than that. Vision fades, hands shake, reading levels vary, and sometimes someone just can’t click that button while juggling a child on one hip. Brands that cling to a single “average” user end up alienating the real humans on the other side of the screen. Replacing that average with a spectrum means designing for variance, not uniformity—and everyone benefits from that shift.

Think Beyond the Screen

Accessibility often gets boiled down to digital design tweaks: alt text, contrast ratios, font sizes. These are necessary, but they’re not enough. Accessibility stretches beyond web interfaces—it lives in customer support scripts, store layouts, packaging designs, and even in the pace of spoken instructions on help lines. A beautifully accessible website can’t undo the frustration of trying to read 6-point font on a shampoo bottle. Likewise, captions on a video fall flat if customer service refuses to respond to emails from someone who can’t use a phone. The most thoughtful brands bake accessibility into every layer of customer interaction, not just the digital ones.

Meet People Where They Are

Making a business accessible means recognizing the diverse range of ways people engage with content, from screen readers and keyboard navigation to speech-to-text tools and eye-tracking software. It’s not just about visual design or mobile responsiveness—it’s about ensuring that every customer, regardless of ability, can interact with your content on their terms. Turning printed materials into digital formats makes that information more searchable, digestible, and easier to use, especially for those who can’t access physical media. Tools like optical character recognition (OCR) allow you to do this quickly, converting static documents into flexible, readable formats—check this out to see how small changes like these can make your business more inclusive for everyone.

Test with People, Not Just Tools

Automated accessibility checkers are helpful, but they can’t spot clunky copy, hard-to-navigate interfaces, or the feeling of being excluded. Real feedback has to come from real people—including those living with disabilities. That means hiring testers who use screen readers, rely on keyboard navigation, or navigate with limited mobility. But it also means compensating them for their time and trusting them as collaborators, not case studies. When people with disabilities help shape the experience, you don’t just tick compliance boxes—you actually make things usable, respectful, and sometimes even joyful.

Shift the Burden Off the User

Too often, accessibility features feel like opt-ins or workarounds: hidden behind menu walls, buried under settings, or requiring a tech-savvy user to find them. But the burden to make an experience usable shouldn't fall on the customer. If a visually impaired shopper has to activate three toggles just to browse, the problem isn’t their impairment—it’s the design. Good accessibility meets people where they are, without requiring them to self-identify or navigate a maze of preferences. It anticipates instead of reacts. And it makes ease the default, not the reward for persistence.

Normalize, Don’t Spotlight

There's a difference between designing accessibly and turning accessibility into a branding moment. Customers with disabilities don’t want to be applauded for needing captions or labeled as “special users.” They want to be part of the crowd, not standing next to it. When brands treat accessibility as an integrated norm—rather than a charitable add-on—they shift away from tokenism and toward genuine inclusion. It’s about design that respects everyone equally, not a few extra features doled out like favors. The most powerful accessibility work happens quietly, seamlessly, and without requiring anyone to announce themselves.

The conversation about accessibility has moved past surface-level gestures. But intention without follow-through still leaves people out. True accessibility is iterative—it evolves with changing needs, new technologies, and honest feedback. It doesn’t require perfection from day one, just a commitment to always do better. In every industry, with every interaction, there's a chance to either build a barrier or break one down. And if you’re in the business of customers, accessibility isn’t extra—it’s everything.