Category Did You Know?
Shared on Instagram and archived here, this section presents little-known facts about inclusion and disabilities that will help you better understand why inclusion matters, and why you need to care.
Under the Accessible Canada Act (ACA), organizations must create accessibility plans that outline future barrier identification, removal, and prevention. Although these plans need not include records of removing barriers in the past, organizations must also create progress reports that show how they are implementing these plans.
As an organization, are you leveraging these progress reports as public records of the steps your brand has taken to comply?
More details about Did You Know… #014Designing content for your perceived average users is a flawed concept that potentially leaves a large portion of your audience behind. Indeed, most people have jagged profiles with characteristics that will prevent them from perfectly fitting the mold. By designing for extremes and stress cases such as disabilities and other potential barriers, your brand can ensure that all of your audience is implicitly included.
Do you rely on everyone fitting that perfect mold of yours?
More details about Did You Know… #013The Accessible Canada Act (ACA) builds on the Canadian Human Rights Act and focuses on the prohibition of discrimination based on disability. Adopted in the summer of 2019, this law applies to the Federal government as well as all federally regulated organizations and agencies. These include sectors such as transportation, banking, mining, borders, information, and communication technologies.
Does ACA apply to your business?
More details about Did You Know… #012Research shows that people with disabilities have friends and loved ones who can be influenced when deciding which businesses to solicit, based on how inclusive brands are to those they care about. According to Rich Donovan, author of the book “Unleash Different”, the disability market, which is made up of people with disabilities and those who care about them represents over 53% of the population.
Can your business afford to ignore this growing market?
More details about Did You Know… #011According to Statistics Canada, one in seven Ontarians self-report as having one disability. Collectively, they represent about 1.8 million people in the province. As the population ages, this proportion will rise to one in five people by 2036, or 20% of the population. Within 20 years, the income of Ontarians with disabilities and seniors is expected to represent 40% of the total income of Ontarians, or $536 billion CAD.
Can your business afford to say “no” to that many people?
More details about Did You Know… #010According to Statistics Canada, about 48% of Canadian adults have literacy skills that fall below high school level, which regularly affects their ability to optimally function in society. Of those, 17% function at the lowest literacy level, where individuals may struggle with simple things like reading the newspaper or understanding dosage instructions on a medicine bottle.
Have you paid attention to the words you use to communicate with your audience lately?
More details about Did You Know… #009When our inclusion strategy doesn’t consider disabilities, aging, marginalization caused by our use of technology, and cultural differences in our digital communication or during live, in-person, or virtual events, we can easily shut out up to 40% of our audience without even realizing it!
Can you imagine how many potential clients that might represent?
More details about Did You Know… #008Disabilities come in many shapes and forms, but not all of them are always obvious to the onlooker! According to the Invisible Disabilities Association, 74% of people who have disabilities don’t require assistive technologies but still deal with conditions ranging from mild challenges to severe limitations that limit their daily activities. Conditions the rest of us would not be aware of unless they actually told us.
Could it be that your audience is more diverse than you think?
More details about Did You Know… #007Combined, working-age adults with disabilities and those over the age of 65 make up for about 40% of the entire population, meaning that more than a third of our fellow citizens fall in either category. Despite appearances, this underserved market is NOT a minority. Catering to their needs and expectations can only result in increased revenue growth for your business.
Wouldn’t you agree this is a market worth tapping into?
More details about Did You Know… #006The cost of a relatively simple accessibility-related lawsuit that gets settled quickly in the United States still averages around $350,000 USD or more… which is at least 10 times more expensive than creating your digital content to be more inclusive in the first place by making digital accessibility an integral part of your design and development process.
Does it really make sense for your business to run such risks?
More details about Did You Know… #005In 2021, many companies have received multiple ADA-based lawsuits. Often, the first lawsuit is for the website and the second for a mobile app. Additional lawsuits have been filed against the same website, app, or against another related brand in the case of a holding company. In some instances, the same website receives lawsuits from different plaintiffs.
Can you imagine the damage to your brand, if you were caught on the wrong side of a lawsuit?
More details about Did You Know… #004According to 2021 data from the American Institutes for Research (AIR), the total after-tax disposable income of working-age Americans with disabilities is about $504 billion USD per year, which is on par with other incredibly significant American segments, such as the Black ($501B USD) and Latinx ($582B USD) communities.
Can your business truly afford to neglect the expectations and needs of the population living with various disabilities or impairments?
More details about Did You Know… #003Findings from the Conference Board of Canada suggest that the share of people with disabilities in the overall Canadian consumer market will rise sharply over the coming years. In 2017, the consumer market for Canadians with physical disabilities made up about $165 billion CAD or 14.3% of the total consumer market in the country. By 2030, this share will reach 21%, with spending rising to $316 billion CAD annually.
Is your business even aware of this untapped market?
More details about Did You Know… #002Accessibility-related lawsuits are on the rise, and show no signs of slowing down! In 2021 alone, a total of 4,055 lawsuits were filed against American businesses, on the basis of their digital content not being inclusive of people with disabilities, for an average of over 10 lawsuits every single day. Of those businesses, over 500 were sued multiple times.
This was a 15% increase over the 2020 data. Is your own organization facing similar legal risks?
More details about Did You Know… #001