Coffee N° 5 with Lara Schmoisman
Episode: Accessibility, Compliance, and Conversions: Why Digital Inclusion Is a Business Imperative
Guest: Bet Hannon
Date: September 30, 2025
Overview
In this episode, host Lara Schmoisman dives deep into the crucial—but often overlooked—topic of digital accessibility with expert Bet Hannon. They lay out why accessibility isn’t just a legal or “feel-good” checkbox but a business imperative, impacting both compliance risk and the size of your potential customer base. Together, they break down the practical aspects of accessible digital design, common misunderstandings, and how embracing inclusion directly boosts business results.
Key Discussion Points & Insights
What Is Digital Accessibility? (02:32)
- Bet explains that digital accessibility ensures people with a wide range of disabilities can use websites and digital products. Disabilities can be physical (e.g. people unable to use a mouse), visual (e.g. blind users relying on screen readers), cognitive, or sensory (e.g. motion sensitivity).
- Accessibility needs are highly individual: “There are as many different devices almost as there are people.” (03:12, Bet)
- Design must account for screen readers, keyboard navigation, captioning for the hearing-impaired, seizure/motion disorders, and more.
Accessibility as User Experience (04:35)
- Lara emphasizes her frustration with pretty websites lacking substance: “There is no user experience. It’s all only about to make it pretty.” (04:58, Lara)
- Bet reframes accessibility as “a form of user experience optimization ... considering that you might have customers with disabilities as part of that journey.” (05:11)
- The importance of including Personas with disabilities in UX strategy is emphasized.
The Law & Gray Areas (06:05)
- Bet provides context on US legal frameworks:
- Most lawsuits hinge on the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), originally passed in 1990 (06:05).
- Specific requirements remain unclear and vary by court jurisdiction—some require e-commerce sites to be accessible only if there’s also a physical store.
- Legal risk is nationwide, since lawsuits can be filed in any district; hotspots include California, New York, and Florida.
Quote:
“It is the law and that's been kind of pretty clearly established—that you need to make your site workable for people. You can't exclude them.”
— Bet Hannon (07:08)
The Limitations of Accessibility Plugins and Overlays (07:34)
- Automated plugins/overlays claim to fix accessibility, but only catch roughly 30% of issues.
- Worse, these tools often conflict with real assistive tech (e.g. screen readers), rendering sites unusable for some.
- Using plugins can even make site owners more legally vulnerable since it's obvious they knew about the issue but didn’t resolve it fully.
Quote:
“Those plugins are using automated tools. Automated testing can only find about 30% of issues ... now what we see is that predatory lawsuits ... about 25% of those are now sites already running an overlay or plugin.”
— Bet Hannon (08:10)
Design Details: Color Contrast and Fonts (09:13)
- Color contrast is one of the most common accessibility failures.
- Lara: “Don’t get in love with a color palette that won’t pass accessibility.” (09:46)
- Tools in platforms like Figma can help check this automatically.
- Orange, in particular, is called out as “really hard to match for accessibility.” (09:58, Bet)
- Accessibility checks must be built into every design and update cycle, especially for constantly changing ecommerce sites.
Notable Segment:
Color Contrast & Frequent Errors
(09:13–10:47)
Image Text Issues in Marketing (11:21)
- Many marketers use images with embedded text for email/social graphics, forgetting that screen readers can’t access this text.
- Images with text are also difficult for those who need to magnify content, and can shrink on mobile, making text unreadable.
- Always provide alternative text and make critical text available in the email body or description.
Quote:
“It’s an image, but there’s not really a font in there ... it’s not available to a screen reader.”
— Bet Hannon (11:33)
International Digital Accessibility Laws (14:00)
- Beyond the US: the European Accessibility Act (effective June 2025) enforces requirements for any business selling to EU customers—including social media and site accessibility.
- EU law, much like GDPR, can impact companies globally; there are limited exemptions for very small businesses.
Quote:
“If you sell product or services to EU customers ... that site has to be accessible.”
— Bet Hannon (14:42)
Business Case: Compliance and Costs (15:47)
- Legal settlements are expensive, but costs skyrocket when forced to quickly retrofit a non-compliant site.
- Proactively building accessibility from the start is more efficient and less costly.
Practical Tips for Building Accessible Sites (16:23)
- Content: Structure text with proper heading tags (one H1 per page, then properly nested H2, H3, etc.).
- This is crucial not only for accessibility but also for SEO.
- Screen readers help users browse content by headings, so improper nesting breaks navigation.
- Design: Prioritize color contrast, use responsive layouts, minimize text in images, stick with system-standard fonts (e.g., Google fonts).
Quote:
“People who are blind would use their screen reader … to say, read me all the H2s. ... If you’ve jumped your headings around and you haven’t properly nested everything, that’s going to be really hard.”
— Bet Hannon (18:13)
Intersection of Accessibility with SEO and New AI Search (19:21)
- Traditional SEO relies on heading tags and alt text; AI “search” uses OCR and needs strong color contrast for text readability in screenshots.
- Good accessibility practices enhance both SEO and AI discoverability.
Notable Segment:
SEO, AI, and Accessibility
(19:21–20:37)
Accessibility as Business Growth: A Major Market (20:49)
- One common myth: “People with disabilities don’t buy our product.”—but disabilities affect 20-28% of adults in developed nations, and this grows with an aging population.
- Accessibility is directly linked to conversion optimization—opening the door to hundreds of billions in disposable income.
Quote:
“It is a huge, you know, $500 billion in disposable income in the US ... globally, that’s $8 trillion.”
— Bet Hannon (22:20)
Debunking “ADHD-Friendly” Plugins & Fonts (21:45)
- Skepticism around tools claiming to make sites/faces “ADHD-friendly”—the condition varies widely, and single solutions are unlikely to serve everyone.
- Fancy fonts (e.g., cursive) can be problematic for neurodivergent and other users—aesthetics matter, but not more than clarity or sales.
Memorable Moments & Quotes
-
On color choices:
“Think two or three times about picking orange as your main color.”
— Bet Hannon (09:58) -
On business priorities:
“Do you want to look pretty or sell product?”
— Bet Hannon (23:56) -
On the scale of the opportunity:
“...that’s amazing. And what about the ADHD ...?” (Lara 22:36)
Bet: “It is a huge, you know, $500 billion in disposable income in the US ... globally, that’s $8 trillion.” (22:20–22:36)
Timestamps for Important Segments
- Definition of Accessibility: 02:32–04:35
- Legal Landscape & Risks: 06:05–07:28
- Plugin Limitations: 07:34–09:13
- Color Contrast in Design: 09:13–10:47
- Heading Structure & SEO: 17:05–19:21
- AI Search & Accessibility: 19:34–20:37
- Market Potential & Demographics: 20:49–22:36
Tone & Language
The episode strikes a friendly, pragmatic, and slightly irreverent tone. Both speakers cut through jargon to provide straight talk on what works, why it matters, and how marketers and business owners can get ahead—or fall behind—if they ignore accessibility.
Conclusion
Bet Hannon and Lara Schmoisman make a compelling case for embedding digital accessibility into every aspect of online business—calling out both legal risk and missed market opportunity. The actionable insights and no-nonsense advice equip businesses at any stage to do better, for both their users and their bottom line.
Want to connect further or work with Bet Hannon?
Find more resources at larashmoisman.com or in the episode notes.