Digital Accessibility or Accessibility is the degree to which digital systems and information are accessible to all users, regardless of their limitations. In a world increasingly defined by digital interactions, one would expect digital accessibility to be a top priority for organizations. Yet it often appears to be an under-researched topic.

Since the announcement of the European Accessibility Act (EAA) in 2025, which quickly requires companies to comply with accessibility standards, companies have instinctively been faced with the difficult choice. Are we going to invest in conversion optimization or digital accessibility? We are convinced that this need not be a dilemma, because CRO and accessibility need not get in the way of each other but are part of each other. In fact, improving accessibility is inevitable for CRO experts. At Online Dialogue, we see daily examples that demonstrate strong similarities between usability and accessibility, from our expertise in data and psychology.

Accessibility extends beyond just the number of visitors to your website; it impacts the user experience of your entire customer base and thus your business case. So not only is it a moral obligation to ensure that your digital channels are accessible to all, but you will also miss out on revenue if you don't address this issue seriously. In this article, you will discover why digital accessibility is no longer a nice-to-have, but an absolute must for any organization and how you can apply it to your work.

Digital accessibility and the European Accessibility Act (EAA).

Let's start at the beginning. As of June 2025, the European Accessibility Act (EAA). into effect, an international law that requires companies' online platforms to be digitally accessible. Currently, digital accessibility is already mandatory for government and semi-government institutions, with heavy fines for non-compliance. With the advent of the EAA, this obligation will be expanded, making digital accessibility a crucial role for all businesses.

What exactly does the EAA entail?

The EAA requires digital platforms to comply with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), consisting of four basic principles:

• Perceivable: Users must be able to identify content and navigational elements regardless of their perceptual capabilities, such as visual, auditory or using other aids.
• Operable: All users should be able to use the interactive elements of a website or app. For example, not only by mouse, but also by keyboard or voice commands.
• Understandable: Websites and apps should have an understandable structure so that they are not an obstacle for users. A logical structure is essential.
• Robust: This principle refers to the sustainable accessibility of websites and apps so that they are compatible with different software and hardware.

The European Accessibility Act (EAA) will be in effect as legislation in the Netherlands as of June 28, 2025. This law applies to any product or service sold in the European Union. The EAA affects various products and services, including e-books, computers, online shops, ATMs, smartphones, telecommunications services, TV equipment, audiovisual media services, transportation-related services, and consumer banking services. Failure to comply with the law can result in large fines imposed by individual states.

Many companies see the EAA requirement as a burden; a large investment that is not going to pay off immediately. In reality, digital accessibility is a way to engage more customers. In the Netherlands there are over 4 million people with disabilities who may not be able to use your online platform right now. If the legislation applies throughout the European Union, that would be 135 million people. A significant market share.

But how do you adapt your website to meet accessibility guidelines by 2025? And at the same time, how do you make sure it doesn't come at the expense of your business goals?

Digital accessibility in practice

Usability or Accessibility?

Anyone involved in conversion optimization is adept at applying usability principles. With usability research, you identify the problems surrounding the usability of your Web site and start optimizing to solve these problems.

CRO practitioners know that usability and UX designers are indispensable in online optimization. What fewer people know is that your expertise in usability is directly applicable to digital accessibility. In fact, usability and accessibility both focus on creating a website that:

• is effective
• efficient is
• enjoyable work.

The standards and guidelines that apply to usability are exactly the same standards that the EAA uses in their regulations. Namely, the ISO 9241. It formed the basis for the field we now know as UX, and has been the standard when it comes to online usability and accessibility since 2006.

ISO 9241: optimizing for people

These guidelines were first created in 2006 and have remained largely unchanged since then. That's not surprising, either. The guidelines were created to take into account people's senses. And those have been unchanged for at least 10,000 years.

Humans are not perfect. We cannot see all colors, hear all pitches, and smell everything (which, for example, a dog would smell). In other words, we have limits in our perception. Of course there are individual differences between people, but comparatively there are many more similarities. And most importantly, human limits do not change over time. Therefore, it is valuable to take these capacities and limits into account when designing and optimizing a Web site.

Example: contrast
Just look at the image below. For your website, you will probably never choose the ‘Bad contrast’ option, even if you can technically read it. However, for someone who sees just a little less than you, this can make the difference between being able to use your website or not. Additionally, for all your other customers, choosing ‘Good contrast’ will make the experience much easier. Accessibility is therefore not only essential to serve new customers, but it also improves the user experience for your current customers.

Accessibility for your business case

Online Dialogue's BOOM Model

At Online Dialogue, we have long known that you already have an edge when you apply human perception knowledge to your optimizations and customer surveys. That's why we look at online behavior from both a data- and psychology-driven perspective. All the knowledge we gain from optimizations and customer research is stored in a database. From this database (with over 10,000 experiments) we have developed five optimization strategies.

The potential of ability

One of these optimization strategies is Ability. This is where usability and accessibility come together.

We dove into our database and what turned out: Ability is one of the optimization strategies with the most winning tests and the biggest business impact!

We collected the results of these impactful tests and summarized them in the image below. Each of the 3 A/B tests in the image illustrates multiple impactful optimizations applied to different clients and websites.
To the right of the image, we have indicated which EAA guidelines the websites met after implementation. There are often several accessibility guidelines that are included in a single adaptation. By including these standards and knowledge about accessibility in your ideation process, you can both optimize your conversion and gradually work towards the accessibility standards of 2025. Good for your business and for your digital accessibility.

Applying accessibility widely

You've now seen some examples of A/B testing that contributes to both business and digital accessibility. But how can you be sure that investing in digital accessibility on a large scale is actually going to pay off?

Example: investing in mobile responsiveness

Investing always involves taking a risk. But not investing is also a risk. To illustrate this, let's take a step back in time: when responsive mobile websites were not the standard and websites were poorly accessible on mobile devices. The image below may look familiar to you. Would you still visit a website that looked like this?

Around 2016, companies also faced a big choice: invest in a responsive mobile website or not? Today, this is anything but a dilemma; in fact, many companies are already moving toward a mobile-first strategy. We see this ourselves with our clients as well. For example, around 2016 we saw only a small share of mobile visitors (20-30%), by 2024 the percentage of mobile traffic is between 50% and 70%. Mobile conversion rate has also increased rapidly over the years. All the result of a more responsive and accessible web on mobile devices.

As CRO specialists, we deal with making digital platforms more user-friendly and accessible to our users on a daily basis. But as we see in the mobile example; it's not just about the experience of current visitors, it's also about investing in your future visitors. This certainly costs money and time, but it pays off handsomely. Google rewards websites that are well put together: more converting mobile visitors, higher search engine ranking, better user experience, better pagespeed and so on. Digital accessibility continues to build on responsive web design, so this will certainly be the case then.

Conclusion

There is 1 thing we know for sure: By 2025, the entire EU will be subject to the new accessibility standards. What we don't yet know for sure is how big the impact will be on the market. But as CRO specialists, we are more adept than anyone else at improving digital accessibility. And also contributing to a positive business case. So be one step ahead of your competitors, and already take a look at where your biggest opportunities lie in your testing program. Just keep the new guidelines next to your A/B testing ideas, your usability research or your website optimizations. In this way, you will undoubtedly be ready and accessible within a year!

This article was written by Shirley van Haalem (conversion manager) and Floor Beuters (psychologist).