Whether at the start of your accessibility journey or partway through it, complex organisations often face strategic, organisational, and external barriers that can make scaling accessibility difficult.

These challenges are common, but by anticipating changes in the accessibility landscape and wider economic environment, you can make progress that is both effective and sustainable.

A good starting point for scaling sustainable accessibility is to identify your biggest pain points and look at how to reduce or remove them. These often fall into three areas:

• Strategic foundations
• Organisational realities
• External factors

In this post, we explore external factors and how anticipating changes in the accessibility landscape and wider economic environment can help you sustain progress through change.

A note on EN 17161: Design for All

If you’re looking for a standards-based framework for embedding accessibility into your organisation, EN 17161: Design for All offers useful guidance. Our post Understanding EN 17161 Design for All explains the standard in more detail and is mapped to each of the sections that follow.

External factors

Even with strong leadership and a clear internal strategy, accessibility can still be shaped by factors outside your organisation’s direct control. These include regulatory requirements, supplier capability, technology constraints, and customer expectations.

International operations

For global organisations, scaling accessibility consistently across regions brings additional complexity. Legal requirements can differ from country to country, and cultural expectations will shape how disability and accessibility are perceived and prioritised.

Without clear, unified guidance, local teams can be left unsure which standards to follow or how to adapt accessibility practices in a way that works for their region. This can result in duplicated effort, inconsistent experiences, and localised risk.

There are a few ways to support international operations more effectively:

• Create a global accessibility framework: establish shared accessibility principles based on international standards such as WCAG, then supplement them with regional guidance to reflect local laws, user needs, and languages
• Assign regional accessibility leads: regional leads act as local points of contact and ensure that accessibility is implemented consistently, while adapting it appropriately for their market as well as representing local issues to central governance teams
• Provide training and resources in local languages: support teams in applying accessibility best practices by offering training, documentation, and tools that are tailored to regional contexts
• Track progress regionally: use reporting and metrics to monitor accessibility maturity by region and surface local risks, blockers, and successes to central governance teams

Mapping international operations and EN 17161: Design for All

Understanding EN 17161 Design for All contains more details of the following clauses:

• Clause 4.2: Understanding the organisation and its context
• Clause 6: Planning

Changes in accessibility standards

Accessibility standards and guidelines are not static; they continue to evolve. The release of WCAG 2.2 introduced new WCAG 2.2 success criteria focused on cognitive accessibility and mobile usability, and WCAG 3.0 is on the horizon, promising a more flexible and outcomes-based approach.

For many organisations, keeping up with these changes can be difficult, especially when multiple teams work across different platforms, tools, and delivery models.

There are a few ways to manage changes in standards more effectively:

• Monitor standards and regulations regularly: assign responsibility to a central accessibility team, legal function, or risk owner to stay up to date with new versions of WCAG, evolving assistive technologies, and changes in national or regional laws
• Maintain a living accessibility framework: keep internal guidance, policies, and design system documentation up to date by reviewing them on a regular schedule and when significant updates to standards are released
• Communicate changes clearly and early: Share updates across the organisation in a coordinated way, ideally with clear explanations of what has changed, who it affects, and what action is needed
• Plan for incremental adoption: rather than trying to meet every new success criterion immediately, prioritise updates based on user impact, feasibility, and regulatory relevance; this helps teams act without feeling overwhelmed
• Build it into governance: include standards updates as a standing item in accessibility governance meetings so changes can be reviewed and ownership agreed

Mapping changes in accessibility standards and EN 17161: Design for All

Understanding EN 17161 Design for All contains more details of the following clauses:

• Clause 6: Planning

Recessions, cutbacks, and restructures

Economic downturns, budget cuts, and restructuring can put accessibility at risk, especially when teams are under pressure to reduce costs, reallocate resources, or move faster. Accessibility work may be seen as optional, specialist, or something that can be deprioritised “for now.”

But letting go of accessibility can introduce long-term costs: inaccessible products, frustrated users, legal risk, and expensive remediation. Even when budgets are tight, maintaining the accessibility practices you’ve already put in place can be a cost-efficient way to reduce risk and preserve quality.

There are a few ways to do this:

• Maintain what’s already embedded: accessibility that’s part of your design systems, workflows, and team responsibilities doesn’t cost extra to maintain; keeping those practices in place ensures consistency without needing additional investment
• Focus on high-impact areas: prioritise accessibility work where it matters most, such as critical user journeys, high-risk products, or areas with customer feedback so effort is targeted and effective
• Use reporting to show value: continue tracking and reporting accessibility progress so leaders can see where it’s having an impact, and what could be lost if it’s dropped
• Treat accessibility as a risk, not a nice-to-have: include accessibility in your risk models and legal frameworks so it’s seen as essential to product quality and compliance
• Document and decentralise: Make sure guidance, decisions, and tools are documented and shared in central locations where current and new employees have visibility

Mapping economic pressure, organisational change and EN 17161: Design for All

Understanding EN 17161 Design for All contains more details of the following clauses:

• Clause 7.1: Resources
• Clause 6: Planning

In summary

Scaling accessibility within organisations is complex, but by anticipating changes in the accessibility landscape and wider economic environment, you can make progress that is both effective and sustainable.

By taking a structured, joined-up approach, combining strategic foundations and careful management of organisational realities, you can scale accessibility in a way that delivers long-term value for your teams, your business, and your customers.

Next steps

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