From Plateau to Progress: How Proactive Planning Can Revive Accessibility

Proactive digital accessibility is losing momentum. According to the 2025-2026 State of Digital Accessibility Report, only 28% of organizations begin addressing accessibility in digital experience design, down from 32% in 2024. This plateau in proactivity should be a cautionary tale for organizations. When accessibility is introduced only during development, or after launch, teams face higher remediation costs, longer timelines, and compromised user experiences.

At the same time, the business case for proactive accessibility has never been clearer. Professionals that start addressing digital accessibility in design are 45% more likely to connect accessibility to improved customer acquisition, and 72% more likely to connect it to stronger revenue, than those who wait until after an experience is live. For design leaders, these findings point to a critical opportunity. By embedding accessibility into experience planning from the start—where decisions shape usability, cost, and effort downstream—designers can reverse this plateau and deliver meaningful business value.

In this article, I’ll explore what recent research reveals about successful accessibility programs. Then, I’ll outline concrete ways design teams can apply those principles to help organizations move beyond reactive remediation and into sustained progress.

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Five pillars of a successful accessibility program

Our seventh annual industry report, for which we surveyed more than 1,600 professionals involved in digital accessibility globally, reveals five foundational elements consistently present in effective, scalable programs: an accountable party, dedicated budget, accessibility policy, executive support, and effective training.

According to our research, professionals who worked at organizations with these elements in place were more likely to report a range of positive business outcomes tied to accessibility. For example:

• Respondents at organizations with an accountable party, dedicated budget, and accessibility policy were twice as likely to say digital accessibility improves revenue as those with some, but not all, of these elements in place.
• Respondents at organizations where executives are “highly supportive” of digital accessibility were more than three times as likely to say accessibility improves customer acquisition as those lacking executive support.
• Respondents at organizations with “highly effective” training were almost 30% more likely to say accessibility improves user experience than those with ineffective training.

In my experience, these foundational pillars aren’t just essential at the organizational level. For long-term success, each team involved in digital accessibility—including design, content, and development—also needs to have their own version of these elements in place.

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Applying the pillars within design teams

Design leaders have the influence to break through the accessibility plateau by operationalizing these pillars in their everyday workflows.

Accountability

Design teams benefit from having a named accessibility lead—often a designer with subject-matter expertise and authority. This role provides continuity, ensures accessibility considerations aren’t deprioritized under delivery pressure, and serves as a trusted point of guidance for peers.

Budgeting

Design budgets should explicitly account for:

• Accessibility testing tools to surface issues like contrast and target size.
• Accessibility annotation tools to communicate accessibility requirements and intent, like focus order and landmarks, that are not visually represented in mockups.
• User testing that includes people with disabilities.
• Expert evaluations of design artifacts prior to handoff.

Funding tooling increases teams’ efficiency, while funding lived and expert opinions improves the quality of the teams’ output.

Policy

Design-level accessibility policies and standard operating procedures should convert organizational standards into practical checkpoints, including:

• Accessibility reviews of wireframes, visual design, and annotations for handoff.
• Clear criteria that allow design leadership to pause a sprint if accessibility expectations aren’t met.
• Shared documentation that aligns design, content, and development around consistent patterns.

Leadership, metrics, and influence

Design leaders play a critical role in advocating accessibility upward. Many usability metrics already tracked by design teams (such as readability scores, error frequency, and task completion) map directly to accessibility outcomes. Framing accessibility in the language of metrics helps executives understand value, approve funding, and reinforce accountability.

Training and cultural reinforcement

Training tailored to design roles—covering accessible components, patterns, and interaction principles, for example—builds confidence and consistency. Just as important, leaders must model the behaviors they expect. Culture follows practice. When design leaders use accessible design systems, annotate accessibility intent, and incorporate inclusive language into critiques, they signal to teams that accessibility isn’t “more work,” it’s a way of work.

Start on the path to proactive accessibility

Embedding accessibility across each team in the software development lifecycle delivers tangible benefits: greater consistency across large digital portfolios, reduced compliance risk, improved brand trust, and ultimately, better user experiences for everyone.

The research is clear: organizations that align accountability, budget, policy, leadership, and training, then operationalize them within design, outperform those relying on reactive fixes. When accessibility is planned, taught, and reinforced at the design level, it scales naturally across products and teams.

Creative leaders should wield their influence to break through the plateau. By embedding accessibility into planning from day one, design teams can move beyond incremental fixes and build inclusive experiences that endure.

Explore the full State of Digital Accessibility Report to benchmark your program and get more information on this and other strategies for sustainable accessibility.

Frequently answered questions

 

Why is starting accessibility in design more effective than fixing issues later?

Embedding accessibility during design prevents barriers before they reach development, reducing rework, costs, and delays. Teams that start in design create clearer patterns, better documentation, and more consistent experiences, making accessibility easier to maintain as products scale.

What typically causes accessibility efforts to plateau?

Accessibility initiatives often stall when they rely on reactive fixes, lack clear ownership, or are disconnected from design and product workflows. Without early integration, teams spend most of their time addressing backlogs instead of improving quality and maturity.

How can organizations move from isolated accessibility wins to sustained progress?

Sustained progress comes from combining early design integration, shared ownership across roles, training, and measurable outcomes. By embedding accessibility into planning, design systems, and reporting cycles, organizations can scale accessibility alongside their products rather than treating it as an exception.