Secure and Accessible: Where Accessibility and Security Intersect | Webinar Video
Security has a seat at the table from the start of most projects. Teams plan for it, test for it, and keep monitoring long after launch, because nobody wants to find out about a problem from a breach. Accessibility often gets handled the other way around: wait for an audit, then scramble to fix whatever it finds.
Alaina Gordon, Director of Operations at Accessible Web, will talk through the parallels between accessibility and security, and why treating them the same way makes both stronger.
What we’ll cover:
- Why accessibility and security both come down to trust: your users need to know your site is safe and that they can actually use it
- What it looks like to make accessibility part of standard practice, the same way security already is
- The cost of waiting for an audit to tell you what’s wrong
- How to bring accessibility into the same early conversations where security decisions get made
Bring your questions. We encourage you to ask them live throughout the session!
Webinar Video
Watch on YouTube for the full transcript.
Webinar Q&A
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Part of the reason is that accessibility has historically been treated as an afterthought. That matches how many businesses have treated people with disabilities, as outside their primary user group. Some leaders may feel security risk more strongly, though I don’t think one should be prioritized over the other.
People in this industry still hear, “Why do we have to do accessibility for one or two people?” The real problem is that accessibility wasn’t built in from the start, and the barriers that result actively exclude people.
You wouldn’t open a new public building without an accessible entrance. An older building might need retrofitting, but a new website is like a new building. The standards have been on the books for years, and they’re clear. The only real reason to skip them is that nobody made accessibility a priority.
That’s why the business case matters. Accessibility benefits everyone. It’s universal design and usability, and it makes your product robust enough to work with a range of technologies. We help clients shift accessibility left so it becomes part of their design and development cycle. Otherwise it stays a repeated expense that slows them down.
Security has also historically been louder. A breach is obvious, but if someone can’t access your product, they may just leave, and you’ll never hear about it. Accessibility is getting more attention now, and I hope it follows security’s path, where it becomes everyone’s job.
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Yes. This is a newer topic in the accessibility community, and the conversation is still ongoing.
The answer is to research any feature before you implement it and to treat security and accessibility as one decision. You can’t prioritize one over the other. Sometimes that means getting creative and exploring other options. When a vendor is involved, vet them carefully and ask detailed questions about their level of WCAG conformance and how they handle accessibility barriers when they come up.
The goal is balance: keep bad actors out and let legitimate users in. Paying customers shouldn’t be blocked from your product, and you still need to keep people safe.
