While two completely different things, there actually is a correlation between pagespeed and accessibility.
You might have installed numerous plugins to fix your pagespeed.. Only to discover via Lighthouse and public (Core Web Vitals) data that it didn’t help at all. We could do the same with online accessibility: just throw in some third parties/plugins to fix it.
In contrast to pagespeed, an inaccessible website won't impact your SEO as accessibility isn't a ranking factor. Those users actually won't even complain, because they can't use your website or shop in the first place. But you’re definitely missing out on conversion, which could be revenue, sign-ups or quotations via your website.
The similarities
As I just described, there are a few similarities between pagespeed and accessibility:
- Plugins will miss nuances of your both your pagespeed and accessibility issues:
- Plugins doesn't know your audience and their needs either;
- Plugins won’t fix bottlenecks fundamentally.
Lighthouse to the pagespeed and accessibility rescue
I now hear you see "Using plugins, I got rid of all recommendations in Lighthouse". But the above also applies to Lighthouse when analyzing your pages. It doesn't know your users and conditions and is very likely to miss nuances.
When it comes to accessibility, Lighthouse won't know that you meant to use a button while actually using a div to make something clickable. As a result, Lighthouse won't test for this as it didn't know developer's intention. When it comes to pagespeed, the lack of webp images will impact your performance score while in real world, savings depends on your audience.
In the end, it's doable to get a 100% score for both while actually building a bad experience towards real users:
- Building the most inaccessible site possible with a perfect Lighthouse score
- A 100% Lighthouse score might not tell the full story
SEO vs UX
When it comes to pagespeed, most people still worry about SEO rather than UX. But with accessibility, it's all about (real) users first, as those are the ones that should convert.
As a result, a movement is going on for a few years already to warn and stop both website and webshop owners from using so-called Accessibility Overlays. The fact that more than 200 accessibility lawsuits were filed against companies using plugins, might be an incentive already.
Have an eye for accessibility
This might sound like you’ll have a lot of extra work to do, but there are only winners when actually addressing accessibility pro-actively, instead of making it an afterthough. Websites get more accessible for people with disabilities and your customer range extends since you include them on your website.
Include everyone in your business
Accessibility oould be good for crawlability. But next to that, it just is very important for people with disabilities. This group is larger than you might initially think. It includes people with visual or hearing impairments and, for example, a large part of elderly people. It is good to remember that it is not only people with disabilities who benefit from an accessible world.
Keep in mind that according to World Health Organization one billion people (15% of the world’s population) is experiencing some kind of disability. And this doesn’t even include elderly (65+) people yet. They might just be having a hard time on your website or webshop for other more UX related reasons.
