November 24, 2025
Will AI make us smarter or dumber? The insights of Klöpping, Scherder and Online Dialogue
Reflection on Klöpping × Scherder by Simon Buil (Data Analyst at Online Dialogue)
The ‘Irma effect’: created thanks to sign language interpreter Irma Sluis, who at the beginning of the corona crisis was regularly seen between Mark Rutte and Hugo de Jonge during their weekly press conferences. It caused a sharp increase in the number of applications from sign language students. Not only in the Netherlands, by the way. Worldwide, sign language interpreters ensured that people with hearing impairments could follow the new corona news.
We can also learn from this for optimizing our websites. By increasing the accessibility of our websites, everyone can use the Web, regardless of their disability. Of course, businesses can benefit from this themselves, but the moral obligation is even more important.
While writing this blog, Contentsquare a free handbook on this exact topic. According to this handbook, more than one billion people have disabilities that affect their ability to use the Internet.
There are many reasons why your website visitors may have difficulty accessing your website. Hearing disabilities, vision impairments, dyslexia and lack of motor control are just a few.
Some figures from Contentsquare's report:
These people may experience problems shopping online, chatting with customer service, taking online courses and visiting your website. And for your website, of course, this means a lower conversion rate and a lower SEO ranking.
Fortunately, governments are increasingly setting web accessibility standards as awareness of them grows.
In other words, all product owners, conversion specialists and SEO specialists should have this topic top of mind.
As with any optimization battle, the first step is to understand your website visitor. Below you will find a brief explanation for each constraint and some solutions for your website.
However, if you want to understand your users, you can experience limitations yourself or do what you hopefully always do: user research.
To experience it for yourself, several Chrome extensions simulate how people with disabilities experience the Internet. One example is Web Disability Simulator.
If you want to experience hearing impairment, you can try watching instructional videos and online courses while turning off the sound. And since there is a large group of people who do not use a mouse or trackpad (due to physical or visual limitations), you can try navigating by using only your keyboard.
For user research, you can conduct usability tests or interview your users with disabilities to understand how well they can navigate your Web site. Of course, you can also hire UX designers or CRO specialists with disabilities.
People with severe visual impairments use text-to-speech software that reads out the content of a Web page. The software scans the navigation and headers and using the keyboard, these users navigate through your website. Therefore, blind people rely completely on well-structured content and clear navigation.
Watch this YouTube video to see how it works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEbl5jvLKGQ
People with low vision and color blindness will generally navigate your Web site just like users without disabilities. However, fonts that are too small and certain colors may prevent them from using your website properly.
For these people, a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 is required. There are several websites and Chrome extensions to check this. Also, a font size of at least 14 points, but preferably 16 points or larger, is required. And use captions with your images so users understand what the image displays if they can't see it.
If your website or digital product uses only sounds to convey a message, people with hearing impairments will rely heavily on subtitles. According to Contentsquare's report, about 6.1% of the world's population suffers from hearing loss.
For people with hearing impairments, taking a video course is only possible if it has subtitles. Following training in a classroom with a teacher is impossible for many unless they have excellent vision of the teacher's lips and face. And for online classes, if a teacher is explaining something by speaking and sharing his screen at the same time, it is impossible to follow the lesson.
Many (well-known) online courses and many product instructional videos do not have subtitles. Some have automated captions, but these often show the wrong words.
Furthermore, it is good to know that Google Meet now has live automated captioning during video calls. And this captioning is pretty accurate. Very cool to see.
People with tinnitus (ringing in the ears) have totally different problems. Because they hear sounds that are not caused by noises from their surroundings, it is difficult for them to stay focused for long periods of time. As a result, long texts with difficult words are difficult to read. By the way, this also applies to people with dyslexia. To help these people, you can make your text easier to scan, avoid using difficult words, use small font sizes and leave enough white space between the lines.
To better understand this disability, I had the pleasure of chatting with Youness Bensouda (He is looking for a job).
In addition to hearing and vision impairments, there are several other limitations that keep people from using your website.
Physical disabilities such as paralysis and problems with motor skills can keep people from doing the things they would like to do. The Internet, especially for them, can help them order things and stay in touch with family and friends. Keep in mind that it may be impossible for these people to use a mouse.
People who suffer from cognitive disorders, such as dyslexia and memory loss, affect the way people process information. For example, it can affect their ability to understand a large piece of text or make it difficult for someone to concentrate on a Web page for too long.
With these visitors, also make sure you have good navigation, structured content, keep pop-ups to a minimum, a font size of at least 14 points, make your website accessible without a mouse, and provide auto-fill forms and payment funnels.
With more than a billion people with disabilities affecting their ability to use the Internet, we need to make our websites more accessible. Not just for the extra revenue, but mostly because it's a moral imperative.
Governments fortunately set standards for Web accessibility. Those responsible for a Web site or digital product can follow Web standards, such as the W3C, WCAG or Google quality guidelines.
The Contentsquare handbook, from which I got much of the information for this blog, is also well worth reading. It provides more information and checklists to make your website more accessible.
You can make it download handbook here.
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