Listen to the 'Accessibility' Link is a Lie

It should be noted that I utterly loathe corporations. It's important, though, to keep in mind when reading, that a corporation looks and acts very differently than a small business trying to do the right thing.

In the corporate world, there's a special kind of lie. It's not a loud, brazen falsehood; it's a quiet, self-congratulatory link. It lives in the footer of websites, usually next to the copyright notice, a tidy little link that says “Accessibility Statement.” This statement is a company's way of patting itself on the back, assuring the world that it cares deeply about inclusion. It is, in my experience, often the most cynical lie on the entire internet.

Last week, I decided to buy a new noise canceling headset. This was the most important task I’d do all week. Not because I actually had enough money to buy something, a catastrophically rare occurrence, but this was a chance for me to deepen my profound relationship with all the audiobook narrators that don't know I exist but change my life on a daily basis.

Regarding the company, let's call the company "Audiocorp." Their website was a minimalist dream, I'm sure. It also had a glowing Accessibility Statement, full of passionate prose about their commitment to WCAG 2.1 AA compliance. I was impressed.

The admiration lasted until I tried to check out. The "Add to Cart" button? Unlabeled to my screen reader. It was just "Button." The form fields for my address? A chaotic mess of unlabeled edit boxes. The final "Confirm Purchase" button? It was an image, with no alternative text. To my screen reader, the most crucial part of their entire e-commerce platform was the digital equivalent of a silent shrug. I, a person with miraculously rare money in hand, was physically incapable of giving it to them because their beautiful, accessible-in-name-only website was a broken maze.

My first instinct was the usual hot surge of anger and resignation. But then I looked at their Accessibility Statement again. And I had an idea. I wasn't going to complain to customer service—that's a black hole. I was going to help them live up to their own glorious promises.

I spent the next ten minutes documenting every single failure. Then, I drafted an email. Not to [email protected], but to [email protected].

It went something like this:

Subject: A Question Regarding Your Inspiring Accessibility Statement

Dear Audiocorp Legal Team,

I am writing to express my profound admiration for your company's detailed and forward-thinking Accessibility Statement. Your commitment to ensuring all users, regardless of ability, can access your services is a model for the industry.

As a blind individual who uses a screen reader, I was particularly excited to engage with your platform. In the spirit of helping you fully realize your stated goals, I wanted to provide some feedback on a few minor areas where the current user experience doesn't yet align with your excellent policy. For example, the checkout button currently presents as an unlabeled graphic, which may inadvertently create a barrier for customers using assistive technology, a potential point of concern under Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

I have attached a short document detailing these small opportunities for improvement. I am, of course, eager to become a paying customer and support a company that so clearly values inclusion.

Sincerely, Robert Kingett

I was polite. I was complimentary. And I was aiming a very precisely worded legal bazooka right at their heads. I weaponized their virtue signaling.

I didn't get a form reply from customer service. Twenty-four hours later, I got an email directly from a Vice President of Digital Strategy. He was deeply apologetic. He cc'd their head of web development. He asked if I would be willing to test the fixes they were implementing immediately. He gave me a discount code for my trouble.

Three days later, their checkout was fully accessible. And I bought my noise canceling headset.

The lesson is this: never fight a corporation's customer service department. Fight its legal department or its PR department. They don't care about your inconvenience, but they are terrified of a broken promise. And their Accessibility Statement is the biggest, most legally binding promise of all.

If you enjoyed this essay, you might enjoy reading, Iris and the Crew Tear Through Space! by Cait Gordon. Iris and the Crew is a disability-hopepunk space opera series that follows the adventures of a science vessel crew on a massively accessible ship, the S.S. SpoonZ..