Product accessibility: why is it so important for businesses?

At Qonto, product accessibility is a key aspect of our Impact initiative. Dedicated to becoming a more sustainable, diverse, and admirable player in the fintech sector, we’re tackling Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I) issues from more than one angle.

As part of this initiative, our website team, design team, and DE&I project managers have been committed to making Qonto’s product more accessible. What this means is, they’ve done an overhaul and audit on the current state of the app, identifying areas in need of improvement. The aim has been to make sure that the product can be fully appreciated by our users.

In the interest of transparency and open communication with our clientele, we’ve conducted an interview with several Qonto employees in the teams responsible for handling this task.

First, however, we’ve put together an article on the definition and importance of product accessibility. We want to share our knowledge on the topic with our audience who run their own businesses, to help you, our clients, understand and implement some of these practices for yourselves.

Product accessibility means making a company’s product as usable as possible for everyone, regardless of their physical and cognitive abilities.

For a mobile device or digital desktop app, this could include things like:

• Screen reading technology
• Minimal flashing lights or distracting popups
• Subtitles and/or audio descriptive captions
• Advanced voice recognition to detect atypical speech patterns
  
  

…among many other features. Anything that a product needs in order for more users to benefit from the totality or majority of its features, will fall under the category of product accessibility. This includes the means by which a business owner attracts customers and makes their product available, i.e. your website, shopfront, and marketing techniques. Making all of these channels accessible means broadening your reach and maximizing your potential as a business.

In France, article L412-413 of the Consumer Code requires all legal commercial entities to pass a certain standard of web accessibility. The requirement will be enforced from June 2025 onwards, and will not apply to companies with fewer than ten employees or whose annual turnover does not exceed €2 million.

More on the requirement can be read here (article in French).

Increasing your product accessibility is good for business. The wider you cast your net, the more visibility you can get. Beyond being the fulfillment of a moral imperative all business owners and company managers should consider, dedication to the accessibility of your product or website will be to your benefit in many ways.

1. Increase market reach. Worldwide, 16% of people experience significant disability. This equals about 1.3 billion people, or 1 in 6 of us currently dealing with disability. By failing to prioritize the accessibility of their product, website, or on-site location, company owners are neglecting this sizeable portion of potential customers. Depending on the nature of their disability, this demographic may be more likely to shop online for the majority of their basic needs.
2. Drive innovation. Considering various demographics with specific needs causes developers and designers to think critically and creatively when designing products and websites. In this way, product/web accessibility can be considered something that benefits everyone, not just those who may need it.
3. Enhance brand reputation. Customers may be more inclined to support and recommend a brand that takes into account the needs of a wider demographic. Championing diversity and inclusion, and committing to that stance is likely to communicate to customers that yours is a brand to be trusted, that cares for its clientele.
4. Minimize legal risk. Accessibility initiatives can be costly to implement, but these costs may pale in comparison to a lawsuit brought upon by a client due to an accessibility or discrimination accusation. Not to mention the irreparable damage this can cause to your company’s brand reputation. Prioritize accessibility and avoid these consequences.

Especially when it comes to digital products, product accessibility means tackling several different areas of disability and impairment. To make your product truly accessible, you need to at least consider each of these areas, even if it appears on the surface to be unrelated.

Web accessibility is inherently visual, making this a crucial impairment to address for any business that uses a website or app interface for their wares or product. Where total or near-total blindness will require construction of an audio presentation of the website, less debilitating visual impairments can be addressed without as much effort.

Color blindness, for instance, may cause a potential customer to miss valuable information. Adjusting your website for its color schemes isn’t going to affect the experience for viewers without color blindness or other visual impairments, making this a simple and worthwhile change.

Common product accessibility improvements for visual impairments include:

• Ensuring proper contrast ratio for text readability
  • E.g. the contrast ratio between text and its background should be at least 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text.
• Limiting the colors in your interface to convey information accurately
  • E.g. blue/orange is a common color-blind-friendly palette. Try to avoid mixing red and green in the same graphic.
• Allowing users to adjust fonts manually
  • E.g. many websites allow users to adjust the font size in their browser settings.
• Using more than color to indicate meaningful or important information
  • E.g. use also icons, symbols, or text labels to indicate important information.

Different types of hearing loss can affect people in various ways. This requires attention to product accessibility so that each of these areas can be met.

• Conductive hearing loss causes muffled sound for the sufferer
• Perceptive deafness results in distorted sounds
• Crackling tinnitus adds a crackling sound to external noises
• Whistling tinnitus adds a whistling sound to external noises

Common product accessibility improvements for hearing impairments include:

• Detailed text transcripts synchronized with video content, for both dialogue and sound effects
  • E.g. Netflix provides transcripts to users for all of its original content.
• Sign language interpretation during live events
  • E.g. hiring an interpreter for keynote speeches, who can be present in person or via video link.
• Minimal, selective sounds on your website that do not exacerbate tinnitus
  • E.g. many websites avoid beeping sounds or complex noises, and opt for a simple ‘click’ noise when a user clicks on something.
• Option for audible notifications to be turned on/off or adjusted
  • E.g. smartphones often allow users to adjust notification volume and settings.

Digital-only products provide tremendous assistance to customers with mobility impairments. By removing the need for branch visits, finance solution apps like Qonto enable much wider access for their clientele.

Beyond physical mobility impairments in individuals, product accessibility can also assist regionally isolated customers, who need to be able to access the product’s full capabilities remotely. This includes getting documents signed and contacting customer service.

Common product accessibility improvements for mobility impairments include:

• Adapted keyboards
  • E.g. one-hand keyboards, large print keyboards.
• Voice command capabilities
  • E.g. Amazon’s Alexa can be used to control smart home devices, such as lights and thermostats.
• Simple website navigation commands
  • E.g. many websites use keyboard shortcuts to navigate the site, which is useful for people who have difficulty using a mouse.
• Digital-first features
  • E.g. your product could be designed to be used primarily on smartphones and tablets, making it more accessible to people who have trouble using traditional devices like computers.

Cognitive accessibility or COGA is an aspect of digital accessibility focused on removing barriers for users with cognitive impairments and differences. Some of the most common cognitive issues affect attention spans, memory, learning, and executive functions.

Addressing these issues, product designers need to consider things like a person’s ability to stay focused on a certain task for a period of time, different levels of literacy and language proficiency, their long and short-term memory capabilities, and the emotional control or regulation they can exhibit when completing a task.

Common product accessibility improvements for cognitive impairments include:

• Symbols that clearly indicate the meaning of the content
  • E.g. many websites use icons that represent different types of content (film reels for videos, letters for email, etc.)
• Easily findable critical information with readily available support
  • E.g. many products have a "Help" section that provides instructions on how to use the product and how to seek assistance.
• Clear and simple visual layout
  • E.g. many websites use a grid layout. This makes it easy for users to find the information they need.
• Autocomplete assistance and intelligent search functions
  • E.g. your search engine could include a local autocomplete function that predicts searches based on the content on your website.

Product accessibility is a worthwhile task for developers and small business owners. It’s about catering to the customers’ needs in the most inclusive way possible, while continuing to adapt your product to different needs and improve on previous designs.

In our next article, we’ll be going into detail about how Qonto’s design and web teams, along with our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I) project managers, approached improving the accessibility of our app and website.