WCAG compliance is a floor, not a ceiling. The organizations building the most accessible products treat accessibility as a design value, not a legal requirement.
The Compliance Trap
Most organizations approach accessibility as a compliance exercise — auditing against WCAG, fixing identified issues, and considering the work done. This produces products that claim technical compliance while still being genuinely difficult to use for people with disabilities.
Building Accessibility Into the Process
The most cost-effective accessibility approach integrates considerations at every stage: requirements documented alongside functional requirements, review integrated into design critique, automated testing in CI/CD, and manual testing with assistive technologies before release.