Accessibility Gap

The measurable disparity in task performance, user experience, or access between people with disabilities and people without disabilities when using digital technology. The accessibility gap is commonly measured through differences in task completion time, error rates, success rates, and subjective effort. Research consistently shows a 2-10x time gap between screen reader users and sighted users for web tasks. Reducing the accessibility gap requires not just fixing technical compliance issues but fundamentally rethinking how interfaces are designed to support diverse access modalities from the outset.