The Accessibility Imperative

The Billion-Person Blind Spot

Imagine building a product and intentionally excluding 15% of your potential users. No company would do that on purpose. Yet most digital experiences — websites, apps, documents, videos — are built without considering the one billion people worldwide who live with disabilities.

26% of US adults have a disability. That’s not a rounding error — it’s one in four people. And that number only captures permanent disabilities. Millions more have temporary impairments (a broken wrist, post-surgery vision changes) or situational limitations (using a phone in bright sunlight, watching a video without headphones, navigating a website with one hand while holding a coffee).

Accessibility isn’t about building for “them.” It’s about building for everyone — including the future version of yourself who will inevitably experience age-related changes in vision, hearing, and dexterity.

What You’ll Learn

By the end of this course, you’ll be able to:

• Map the landscape of AI-powered assistive technologies across visual, auditory, cognitive, and motor disabilities
• Use AI tools to audit websites and documents for WCAG compliance and generate prioritized remediation plans
• Create accessible content at scale — alt text, captions, transcripts, and document structures
• Design inclusive digital experiences with AI-powered testing and ARIA implementation
• Apply cognitive accessibility principles for neurodiverse users
• Evaluate the ethical implications of AI in accessibility

How This Course Works

This is an advanced course. We assume you understand basic web concepts and have heard of accessibility, but you don’t need prior WCAG expertise. Each lesson builds practical skills:

Every lesson includes AI prompts you can use immediately, real-world examples, and a quiz to reinforce your learning.

✅ Quick Check: What percentage of WCAG issues can automated accessibility tools typically detect? Approximately 30%. The remaining 70% require human testing — including keyboard navigation, screen reader experience quality, cognitive load assessment, and logical reading order. This is why AI-assisted accessibility is about augmenting human expertise, not replacing it.

Why AI Changes Everything

Before AI, making a website fully accessible required deep specialist knowledge, manual testing across multiple assistive technologies, and significant time investment. Most organizations couldn’t afford it, so accessibility was either done poorly or not at all.

AI shifts three critical bottlenecks:

But AI also introduces new challenges — algorithmic bias, over-reliance on automation, and the risk of “checkbox accessibility” that meets technical requirements while failing actual users. This course teaches you to navigate both the opportunities and the pitfalls.

The POUR Framework

Everything in web accessibility builds on four principles, known as POUR:

• Perceivable — Information must be presentable in ways users can perceive (alt text, captions, sufficient contrast)
• Operable — Interface elements must be operable by everyone (keyboard navigation, no time limits, no seizure-inducing content)
• Understandable — Content and interface must be understandable (clear language, predictable navigation, error prevention)
• Robust — Content must be interpretable by assistive technologies (semantic HTML, ARIA, valid code)

AI can help with all four — but as you’ll learn, it’s strongest on Perceivable and weakest on Understandable, where human judgment still dominates.

Key Takeaways

• 15% of the global population (1 billion+ people) lives with disability; 26% of US adults are affected — accessibility is not a niche concern
• Automated tools catch only ~30% of WCAG issues; the remaining 70% require human testing with assistive technologies
• The business case extends far beyond legal compliance: $8 trillion disability market, SEO benefits, usability for all users (curb-cut effect), and innovation
• AI shifts three key bottlenecks: content creation at scale, continuous compliance auditing, and personalized assistive technology
• The POUR framework (Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, Robust) provides the foundation for all accessibility work

Up Next: You’ll explore the landscape of AI-powered assistive technologies — from screen readers and voice control to live captioning and cognitive aids — understanding what’s available for each type of disability.