My accessibility commitment

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
Photo from Design102

I spent my summer doing work in preparation for the (currently still active) 2026 digital accessibility deadlines. It was a good reminder of why digital accessibility must be a core concern for communicators. We have been wrong in ignoring that. We have assumed “hey, it works for me” and “our followers will say if there is a problem,” and, therefore, we allowed accessibility concerns to be pushed to our mythical “I’ll do that when I have time” list.

This must stop—not because of legal mandates or fear of reputational harm. This must stop because we are not communicating when we knowingly ignore well-documented barriers that prevent people from accessing our materials—many of which are entirely fixable.

Indeed, we will not be able to fix every accessibility concern immediately. Frustratingly, accessibility will not be a one-time fix. We will also make mistakes and, at times, it may feel like our best efforts will never be good enough.

That is a responsibility we took on when we decided to call ourselves “communicators.”

What I have done

I have always tried to keep accessibility in mind when working on website content. In particular, I have done the actions I know, such as using headers, descriptive links, and adding alt text to my images.

I have been reluctant to post an accessibility commitment due to fear I’d be told those efforts are insufficient. I told myself I needed to learn more about WCAG standards and how to test the template I’ve selected. I was worried that any statement I made would simply be virtue signaling—in reality or appearance. So I kept putting it off, but that stops now.

My commitment

Rather than trying to write a perfect statement or test for 100% compliance, I will make a simple commitment. It is nothing more than what I have already said here: It is my intention for my website and content to be accessible, and I commit to prioritizing that going forward.

I am not an accessibility expert, and I know I will miss things due to my skills and privilege. This is no different than me being a generalist who sometimes designs documents, despite not being a graphic designer. I strongly support hiring experts rather than having me do half measures, and I say they get to charge us whatever they think is appropriate.

I commit to including accessibility in my ongoing learning. And, most importantly, I commit to listening and acting when concerns are raised, rather than second-guessing their priority or demanding workarounds.