RESEARCH NOTEPROGRAM: ENTERPRISE APPLICATIONSDOCUMENT NUMBER: T103 JULY 2019

T HE I NT E RNET IS
UNAVAI LABLE
ANALYSTRebecca Wettemann & Trevor WhiteTHE BOTTOM LINEThe digital divide still exists: not just socially or geographically, but because the Internet islargely inaccessible to people with disabilities. Nucleus conducted in-depth interviews with73 adults who are blind to understand the realities of Internet accessibility for a subset ofthe larger disabled population. With their assistance, we analyzed hundreds of Web sites
and found that more than 70 percent of Internet sites—from top retailers to presidential
campaign sites to the sites of sitting elected officials—all have critical accessibility blockers,
rendering the prime directive of those sites inaccessible. For Internet retailers alone,denying full access to consumers who are blind is leaving as much as $6.9 billion annually toa handful of accessible alternatives.

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1OVERVIEW
Studies on the digital divide (lack of access to the Internet due to social, economic, andother inequalities) have made clear the impact of Internet access on health, education, andfinancial welfare. However, few have considered the challenges of Web accessibility: how
those with disabilities such as vision impairment can access and fully take advantage of theInternet.
To better understand the impact of Web site inaccessibility, Nucleus focused on one group
particularly impacted by the digital divide: individuals who are blind or have severe visual
impairment. We conducted in-depth interviews with 73 blind adults (mostly in NorthAmerica) to understand the challenges they face using the Internet. With their assistance, wealso analyzed hundreds of Web sites—from news sites to top retail sites to political andelected officials’ official sites—to assess their accessibility.

Inaccessible e-commerce retailers arelosing out on $6.9 billion in annual
revenues.

KEY FINDINGS
What we found was astonishing: more than 70 percent of Internet sites are inaccessible,
wrought with the presence of critical accessibility blockers that render the prime directive ofthat site inaccessible. Other key findings included:▪

Internet users who are blind abandon two Internet transactions a month because ofinaccessibility; two-thirds of their transactions, on average, end in abandonment.

▪

Internet users who are blind call a company’s customer service department once aweek on average because of Web site inaccessibility. Ninety percent of interviewees
reported that they regularly call customer service multiple times to report an issue,
even though they have already abandoned the transaction—and made the decision
to use another company where possible▪

Fewer than one in three of the Web sites we analyzed had clear contact information
or means for a consumer who is blind to report accessibility challenges or request

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assistance, meaning consumers had varying level of success in reporting (and far lessin resolving) accessibility issues.

WHAT DOES ACCESSIBILITY MEAN?
Simply put, Web accessibility means the ability to independently gather information,complete transactions, or communicate (by joining newsletters, contributing to surveys, orparticipating in social media sites) on the Internet. We found most Internet users who havevisual impairment access the Internet via assistive technologies—either screen readers orscreen magnifiers—that render Internet sites perceivable and operable for the user who isvisually impaired. However, for those technologies to be effective, Web sites have to bearchitected to be accessible. Basic capabilities such as screen zooming, labeled fields, andtext descriptions for pictures are required to make Web sites “readable” to users who areblind.
In assessing inaccessible Web sites, we found a number of common themes:▪

Partial accessibility. Although some areas or pages of a Web site may be accessible,
certain features or areas are not. In the case of e-commerce sites, for example,catalog pages and ordering capabilities are accessible while the checkout function isnot.

▪

Accessibility regression. While a Web site may have initially been created to beaccessible, upgrades or changes render it inaccessible. More than 50 percent ofusers had experienced accessibility regression.

▪

Common features are inaccessible. Users cited, for example, CAPTCHA—a common
feature designed to distinguish humans from bots—as inaccessible, as well as many
Web surveys.

More than 70 percent of Internet sites areinaccessible to users who are blind.

Lack of accessibility obviously had a detrimental impact on users’ ability to transact business,gain information, and access services via the Internet.

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Although standards for Web accessibility are clearly defined, many organizations clearly
don’t build accessibility into their Web site and application design plans, either because oflack of awareness, willingness, or ability.

THE CULPRITSIn assessing the accessibility of Web sites, we looked at three main categories: popular ecommerce sites, news and information sites, and sites of elected officials and presidentialcandidates.

E-COMMERCE SITESIn looking at the top e-commerce sites in terms of revenues, we found that Amazon, Best
Buy, and Target were relatively accessible, but that two-thirds of the top 10 retailers byrevenue had serious accessibility issues ranging from missing labels for searching andpassword fields, to lack of support for zooming, to lack of CAPTCHA alternatives.

NEWS AND INFORMATION SITESIn assessing the top-trafficked news and information sites, we found that eight out of 10sites had critical issues which made them inaccessible to users who were blind.
Foxnews.com, NBC.com, WebMD.com, and others had multiple critical flaws that would
render them unusable with screen readers.

GOVERNMENT SERVICES
In interviews with Internet users who are blind, we found that seven out of 10 people had
faced challenges in accessing government services or making their voices heard because oflack of Web accessibility:▪

“All their Web sites are challenging. Most aren’t labeled properly.”▪

“My own Medicare Advantage program I can’t access—and there’s no way to tellfrom the Medicare site which sites are accessible and which aren’t.”▪

“It’s so frustrating—they send me e-mails and send me to sites that are inaccessible.
When you call to tell them, they act concerned, but usually nothing happens.”

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4THE ECONOMIC IMPACT
According to the US Department of Commerce, e-commerce revenues in North America
totaled approximately $517 billion in 2018, accounting for 10 to 15 percent of total US retailrevenues in 2018.
Based on our interviews and data gathered from blind advocacy groups, Nucleus estimatesthat 2 percent of total e-commerce transactions are completed by people who are blind,
representing a total market of $10.3 billion annually. The 2 percent is assuming that lessthan half of the blind population (which is 5 percent of the total population) are normal
ecommerce shoppers and contribute that 2 percent share of total e-commerce.
What we also found was that, despite the fact that an average of two-thirds of e-commercetransactions are abandoned by people who are blind because of lack of accessibility, those
consumers don’t abandon those purchases entirely—they buy elsewhere, from accessiblesites. This means that companies without accessible sites are losing $6.9 billion a year tocompetitors whose sites are accessible. To put this figure in context, HomeDepot.com
reported $6.94 billion in revenues in 2018.

CONCLUSION
Although the digital divide presented by Internet accessibility today may seem small, thenumber of people in the United States alone who will have a visual impairment is expected
to double by 2050 as the population ages. It is much more cost effective to build a site withaccessibility as a core principle than to remediate it later. In the case of e-commerce, as sites
continue to struggle against Amazon, investing in accessibility is a way to tap into a $10.3
billion—and growing—market. Enabling customers to complete transactions without having
to abandon purchases is not only the law, but makes good business sense.

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