Digital Accessibility: Common Issues and Challenges

As competition across all industries and global markets intensifies, savvy organizations seek out whatever advantages they can. Digital accessibility can be a key differentiator. Addressing common web accessibility issues and delivering accessible software applications helps businesses better serve a broader audience. This improved customer experience can have a big impact on the bottom line. In this blog post, we’ll walk through some of the most common issues and challenges organizations face when they start down the path toward improving digital accessibility.

Many organizations begin investing in digital accessibility to proactively address potential legal considerations. Court costs and fines can add up quickly, cutting into profits, and news about lawsuits can damage a brand’s reputation as well. To help avoid situations that may lead to costly litigation, organizations must first understand which accessibility laws apply to them — no easy task for global enterprises. 

Once you determine which laws and standards apply to your digital properties, you can conduct regular accessibility audits to identify any areas where your organization needs to close compliance gaps. It’s important to pay attention to planned changes to laws and standards as well, to give your teams time to prepare to meet shifting digital accessibility requirements.   

Demand letters formally notify an organization that portions of their website or app may not be accessible so that the business can resolve the issue without additional legal action. They often include a specific timeframe for compliance. A demand letter is not a lawsuit – it’s a warning for  companies to continuously review and test their compliance strategies as laws change rapidly

If your organization determines that a demand letter raises valid accessibility concerns, the next step is to evaluate your website against the relevant standards. Determine what issues you need to address to achieve conformance and develop a plan to remediate them. The Applause accessibility experts have previously posted guidance on how to respond to demand letters, help avoid ADA lawsuits, and remediate if necessary. 

Different cultures have different attitudes and expectations around digital experiences — and the same holds true for members of the disability community. People with different types of disabilities and assistive technologies often create communities that center those shared experiences; within those communities, certain values and preferences may become the norm. Organizations who want to provide accessible digital experiences must understand how these norms intersect with other influences, such as expectations based on geography, language, religion, economic factors and other affiliations or identities. It’s vital to understand the ways different cultures identify, address and accommodate people with disabilities in order to deliver great user experiences. 

Teams must understand communication styles, cognitive processing, digital literacy and access to determine which cultural adaptations best serve different audiences. Designers and developers need to be culturally sensitive in their approach to digital accessibility, considering the potential impact of their designs on different groups. Involving members of different cultural groups in the design and development process is the best way to validate that digital experiences serve them effectively.

To address defects, development teams must be able to understand what’s happening. Bug reports should include clear, reproducible steps and describe the device, OS, browser and any assistive technology used. A descriptive title also helps. The report should specify the expected and actual results, and any relevant logs or error messages. Screenshots or recordings can show where issues occur and help developers better understand the user experience. 

Working with testers who can produce good bug reports improves the chances that issues will get resolved. Applause’s testing community includes people with disabilities who understand how to clearly document digital accessibility issues.     

Many organizations struggle to test across the full spectrum of devices, browsers, and OSes their customers use even before factoring in different disability profiles or assistive technologies. Teams may turn to automated accessibility testing tools in an effort to improve coverage — overlooking insight from real users with disabilities.     

The 2025 Gartner® Build Accessible Digital Products for Compliance and Success states, “ensuring accessibility in your software requires a thoughtful blend of automated tools and human insight. While automated scanning tools are invaluable for quickly identifying certain accessibility issues, they cannot replace the nuanced understanding that manual human testing provides.” Organizations take advantage of crowdtesting services like Applause to gain access to a diverse user base that reflects a broad range of experiences.  

Collecting feedback from people with disabilities on how they use technology, expect it to work, and want it to work helps companies develop better, more inclusive experiences for all users. Testing a website or application to make sure it’s user-friendly for people who are blind or low vision, deaf or hard of hearing, have limited mobility, or have cognitive disabilities gives organizations a holistic understanding of the experience for almost any potential customer. 

Partnering with a crowdtesting provider like Applause gives organizations access to a team of accessibility experts, including testers with disabilities. Our knowledge of different accessibility standards and laws around the world helps our customers understand where they need to focus to achieve conformance. We’re happy to assist organizations at all stages of the journey to digital accessibility.  

Gartner is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved. 

Gartner, Build Accessible Digital Products for Compliance and Success, Sushant Singhal, Paige Kirk, 14 April 2025