When Accessibility Progress Plateaus: How to Regain Momentum
Most of the time, accessibility programs usually don’t fail suddenly; they quietly stall. Fewer people are trained, bug fixing slows down, and the accessibility dashboard (which executives no longer watch) plateaus. In extreme cases, accessibility can revert from a program back to a project. In those cases, people assume accessibility is “done” until a customer files a complaint or a legal demand letter arrives on someone’s desk.
Hitting a plateau doesn’t mean your accessibility program is doomed. It means it has outgrown its original structure, leadership model, or measurement strategy. That means it’s time to pivot.
Here’s how to recognize when your accessibility program has stalled, and what to do about it.
1. You keep fixing the same problems
One of the most common signs of a plateau is “accessibility déjà vu.” The same issues show up in every release.
New components repeat old contrast failures.
Designers skip heading structures.
QA logs the same missing label bugs repeatedly.
This pattern signals a reactive accessibility program, focused on fixing problems once they occur, rather than preventing them proactively.
What to do instead:
Shift left. Bake accessibility into design reviews, definition of done, and pull request templates. Make accessibility a first-class part of the SDLC, not a clean-up task at the end. This approach may require additional training, integrating automated tests into the CI/CD pipeline, and upper management rewarding teams for good accessibility.
2. No one can articulate your current accessibility goals
If people across your organization can’t name a single accessibility objective for the current quarter, you’ve likely plateaued. “Meet WCAG” isn’t an ongoing goal; it’s a starting point.
What to do instead:
Set specific, measurable objectives tied to business outcomes. For example:
Reduce accessibility bugs’ time-to-fix by 25%
Train 100% of new engineers within 60 days
Improve accessible component coverage in the design system to 90%
Without goals, there’s no direction. Without direction, there’s no momentum. Lack of momentum is a direct cause of accessibility programs plateauing.
3. Leadership support has gone passive
When a program launches, executive enthusiasm is usually high. Over time, as things “seem fine,” that attention fades—and with it, so does influence.
What to do instead:
Maintain visibility. Provide quarterly updates using metrics that matter to leadership: customer retention, legal risk, and developer velocity. Frame accessibility as a core part of quality and risk management, not a standalone initiative. Specifically include disabled customers in your research and provide their feedback to product owners.
4. You’re treating accessibility like a team, not a capability
If all accessibility knowledge sits with a centralized team, that can be a bottleneck. The moment demand exceeds capacity, teams stop asking, or even worse, guess and come up with inconsistent answers.
What to do instead:
Build distributed capability. Create role-based training. Launch a champion network with defined responsibilities and recognition. Embed accessibility goals into team performance plans. The goal isn’t for everyone to be an expert. It’s for everyone to have a baseline competency, access to solid resources for finding answers, and know when, how, and whom to ask for help.
5. Your metrics focus only on compliance
If your dashboard tracks nothing but WCAG violations, you’re measuring the minimum, not maturity.
What to do instead:
Balance compliance metrics with maturity metrics. Track:
% of teams with trained a11y leads
Average time-to-fix
Number of net new a11y bugs introduced per release
Number of a11y regressions per release
% of accessibility fixes that are rejected
Employee and user satisfaction from disabled individuals
Accessibility included in onboarding
Include qualitative data—user stories, complaints, support tickets. Numbers tell you what's happening. Stories tell you why it matters. Stories are where the power resides.
6. Procurement and third-party tools remain inaccessible
You might be making progress internally, but if your SaaS vendors or third-party tools aren’t accessible, you’re importing barriers from other companies.
What to do instead:
Require and evaluate VPATs in your procurement processes. Validate claims with hands-on testing. Include accessibility language in RFPs and contracts. Make procurement a gatekeeper, not a workaround. This will reduce accommodation requests, making disabled staff happier and reducing turnover and litigation risk.
7. Support channels can’t handle issues from customers using assistive technology
Users who hit barriers often turn to support. If your support teams aren’t aware of what a screen reader is, your organization loses trust and critical, free feedback.
What to do instead:
Train support to identify accessibility concerns and route them correctly. Add tags in your CRM to track patterns. Follow up with users when fixes are implemented. Make support part of the accessibility ecosystem.
8. Accessibility isn’t part of performance reviews
If accessibility is never discussed during evaluations, it remains optional. Optional efforts disappear when deadlines loom.
What to do instead:
Integrate accessibility into performance expectations. Examples:
Designers: accessible prototypes and use of inclusive components
Developers: consistent use of semantic markup and remediated bugs
PMs: accessible acceptance criteria in user stories
What gets measured gets managed.
9. Accommodation processes are incomplete, inconsistent, or illegal
Digital accessibility and accommodations should reinforce one another. When they don’t, people fall through the cracks. If your product is WCAG-compliant but your workplace can’t provide accessible tools or timely accommodations, the experience remains exclusionary. The only difference is that the discrimination is adversely affecting employees, not customers.
What to do instead:
Connect the accessibility team with the accommodations program. Ensure your accommodation process is documented, compliant with relevant laws, responsive, and doesn’t require people to repeatedly explain or justify their needs. Track trends. Review Service Level Agreements (SLAs). Use accommodations data to drive accessibility fixes upstream (i.e., procurement) where possible.
Final Thoughts
Plateaus aren’t a sign of failure. They are feedback.
When accessibility programs stall, the solution isn’t to audit more. It’s to examine where your structure, scope, or priorities need to grow. Good accessibility is not about checklists; it’s about building organizational capability.
Breakthrough comes from shifting left, distributing knowledge, refreshing goals, and tying your work to real-world outcomes. Most importantly, continue to listen to your data, your teams, and your users with disabilities.
The needs of your customers and employees with disabilities aren’t going to stand still. Neither should your accessibility program.