6 Major Benefits of Accessibility Testing

Digital accessibility is hardly optional, but rather a business-critical priority. According to the World Health Organization, over 1.3 billion people globally experience significant disability, representing nearly 16% of the world’s population. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that 1 in 4 adults lives with a disability. That’s a substantial portion of the population whose ability to interact with websites, mobile apps, and software tools depends on thoughtful, inclusive design and development.

Despite this, WebAIM revealed that 96.3% of homepages still fail to meet basic WCAG standards—up slightly from the previous year. Most common issues include low contrast text, missing alternative text for images, and unlabeled form fields. These barriers don’t just affect people with disabilities—they also harm usability, frustrate users, and limit reach.

For companies developing digital products, especially those eyeing competitive markets like the U.S., accessibility testing is a powerful way to reduce risk, boost brand loyalty, and create better software for everyone. Whether you're building a healthcare app, an e-commerce platform, or a B2B SaaS platform, ensuring accessibility is about more than compliance—it's about delivering quality user experiences across the board.

In this article, we’ll explore the key benefits of accessibility testing, from expanding market reach and improving SEO to strengthening brand reputation and reducing legal exposure.

Understanding accessibility testing

Accessibility testing is evaluating a digital product, such as a website, mobile application, or software platform, to ensure individuals with a wide range of disabilities can use it. These may include:

• Visual impairments, such as blindness or color blindness;
• Hearing impairments, including deafness or partial hearing loss;
• Motor disabilities, which affect the ability to use a mouse or keyboard;
• Cognitive disabilities, such as dyslexia, ADHD, or memory-related impairments.

The goal of accessibility testing is to identify and remove barriers that prevent users from effectively interacting with your product. It ensures conformance with accessibility standards like the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), Section 508 (in the U.S.), and the European Accessibility Act (in the EU), depending on your market.

Accessibility testing typically covers:

• Automated testing, using accessibility tools and checkers that scan for common issues such as missing alt text, improper semantic structure, or color contrast errors.Manual testing, where testers with and without disabilities use assistive technologies like screen readers (e.g., NVDA, JAWS), voice recognition software, or keyboard-only navigation to evaluate usability.
• User testing, where people with real-world disabilities engage with the product and provide direct feedback on their experience.

Integrating accessibility testing early—ideally from the design and development stages—makes the process more efficient and cost-effective. It allows QA teams to detect issues before they become deeply embedded in the codebase, aligning with the shift-left approach to software testing.

Expanding market reach

One of the most compelling benefits of accessibility testing is its ability to open up your product to a significantly larger and often overlooked audience. When your application is accessible, it becomes usable by people with disabilities—an estimated 61 million adults in the United States alone. 

But accessibility doesn’t just help people with permanent disabilities. It also benefits those with temporary impairments (like a broken arm), situational limitations (such as using a device in bright sunlight), or age-related challenges (like reduced vision or dexterity). By making your digital product more inclusive, you inherently make it more usable for everyone.

From a business perspective, this translates into a competitive advantage. Inclusive products often see:

• Increased user adoption, especially in sectors like education, healthcare, and public services, where accessibility is expected or required.
• Improved customer loyalty, as users recognize and appreciate when a product meets their needs without extra effort.
• Stronger performance in new markets, especially in countries with robust accessibility laws like the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and Australia.

Moreover, large enterprises and government institutions are increasingly requiring their vendors to demonstrate accessibility compliance. If you want to win contracts with public sector clients or enterprise partners, accessibility testing can help meet procurement requirements and avoid disqualification during vendor evaluations.

In short, accessibility isn’t just a checkbox—it’s a growth strategy. Making your product accessible can help your company scale to new demographics, industries, and geographies.

Enhancing user experience

Accessibility testing doesn’t just benefit users with disabilities—it improves the overall user experience for everyone. When products are designed to be more accessible, they often become more intuitive, efficient, and enjoyable to use, regardless of the user’s abilities.

Take keyboard navigation as an example. While it's essential for users who can’t use a mouse, it also benefits power users and developers who prefer keyboard shortcuts. Similarly, captions on videos are critical for users with hearing impairments—but they’re also useful in noisy environments or for users who want to watch content without sound.

Accessible design elements like:

• Clear, consistent navigation;
• Descriptive link text and button labels;
• Logical content hierarchy and layout;
• Responsive, mobile-friendly interfaces...

…are just good usability practices. When implemented thoughtfully, they reduce cognitive load, prevent confusion, and help all users complete tasks more efficiently.

Companies that invest in accessibility often see measurable improvements in product metrics. These may include:

• Higher completion rates for key user journeys (e.g., sign-ups, purchases, support requests)
• Reduced error rates and support tickets related to navigation or content clarity
• Increased time spent on site and user satisfaction scores

Accessible design goes hand-in-hand with user-centered design. By focusing on diverse user needs during testing, QA teams can help shape a product that not only meets compliance standards but truly serves its users.

Reducing legal risk

One of the most pressing reasons companies invest in accessibility testing is to avoid legal exposure. In the United States, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires businesses to provide equal access to services, including digital platforms. Failure to comply has led to a steady rise in lawsuits—over 4,600 ADA web accessibility cases were filed in federal court in 2023 alone, with projections showing continued growth in 2024 and beyond.

Industries such as retail, finance, healthcare, education, and travel are particularly vulnerable to legal claims. Plaintiffs typically cite non-compliance with accessibility standards like WCAG 2.1, which is often used as a benchmark in court cases. Common complaints include websites or apps that are incompatible with screen readers, lack keyboard navigation support, or use color combinations that are unreadable for users with visual impairments.

But legal risk isn't limited to the U.S. Countries around the world are tightening digital accessibility regulations:

• The EU enforces the European Accessibility Act (EAA), which mandates accessibility in e-commerce, banking, transport, and more by 2025.
• Canada introduced the Accessible Canada Act (ACA) to ensure barrier-free access to federal services and institutions.
• Australia and the U.K. have long-standing accessibility laws that are actively enforced.

Accessibility testing allows organizations to proactively identify and address non-compliance issues before they escalate into legal challenges. It helps QA teams verify conformance to international standards like WCAG, build robust documentation, and demonstrate due diligence if a complaint arises.

While accessibility lawsuits can lead to costly settlements, reputational damage, and mandatory remediation timelines, many of these risks are preventable. By building accessibility into your testing process, you not only protect your business but you also show accountability to your users.

Improving SEO and discoverability

Accessibility testing doesn't just benefit users—it can also give your digital products a significant boost in search engine visibility. Many of the principles that make a website or app accessible overlap with best practices for search engine optimization (SEO). That means when you invest in accessibility, you're also laying the foundation for stronger online performance.

Here’s how accessibility contributes to better SEO:

• Descriptive alt text helps screen readers describe images to users with visual impairments, but it also provides context to search engines about what your content contains.
• Proper use of heading tags (H1, H2, H3, etc.) allows assistive technologies to navigate content easily and helps search engines understand the structure of your pages.
• Video transcripts and captions improve accessibility for users with hearing impairments and make multimedia content indexable by search engines.
• Semantic HTML and clean code ensure that both assistive technologies and search engine crawlers can efficiently parse and interpret your content.

Google and other search engines reward websites that provide a better user experience, especially for mobile users, which now account for over half of global web traffic. Accessible websites tend to load faster, have more logical navigation, and follow modern web standards, all of which contribute to better rankings.

Additionally, accessible content is more likely to be shared, linked to, and revisited by a diverse user base, all of which are positive signals for SEO. It’s a virtuous cycle: better accessibility leads to better usability, which leads to better visibility.

For product teams and QA managers, accessibility testing becomes a strategic advantage, not just for compliance, but also for discoverability and growth.

Strengthening brand reputation and demonstrating social responsibility

In a socially conscious marketplace, users and stakeholders increasingly expect companies to uphold values of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Accessibility is a visible and measurable way to put those values into practice. By investing in accessibility testing, your company sends a clear message: everyone is welcome here.

This commitment does more than check a box. It builds trust with customers, employees, and partners. A product that works well for people with disabilities not only meets legal and technical standards—it reflects empathy, foresight, and user-first thinking.

Companies that prioritize accessibility often enjoy:

• Stronger brand loyalty from users who feel seen and supported
• Positive media coverage for inclusivity initiatives or accessible design choices
• Higher employee satisfaction, particularly in diverse or globally distributed teams
• Improved scores on ESG (environmental, social, and governance) metrics, which are increasingly important for investors and corporate partners

Big tech companies such as Apple, Microsoft, and Google have long embraced accessibility as part of their core design philosophy, not just for compliance, but because inclusive design leads to better, more widely adopted products. And in highly regulated or mission-critical industries like healthcare, education, and finance, accessibility isn’t just about optics—it’s a non-negotiable requirement.

By weaving accessibility testing into your quality assurance strategy, you’re building a product—and a company—that people want to support and recommend to their circle.

Final thoughts

Accessibility testing is no longer a niche concern—it’s an essential part of building reliable, inclusive, and future-ready software. From expanding your reach and enhancing the user experience to improving SEO and avoiding legal risk, the benefits of accessibility extend across the entire product lifecycle.

But more than that, accessibility is a reflection of your company’s values. It shows that you care about creating experiences that are equitable, usable, and welcoming to all users, regardless of ability. And as digital products become more integral to daily life, that kind of thoughtful development is what sets leading companies apart.

Whether you're developing a new application or optimizing an existing one, accessibility testing should be an integrated part of your QA strategy, not a last-minute fix. It’s good for business, good for users, and simply the right thing to do.

At TestDevLab, we offer end-to-end accessibility testing services to help you meet global standards, exceed user expectations, and stay ahead of compliance requirements. 

Ready to make accessibility a core part of your product quality? Get in touch to learn how we can support your accessibility goals—no matter where you are in your development journey.