Passenger are one of my favourite companies. They're sustainably led, they have great products, and it's clear that they're a company which really cares about what they do. So, I was browsing their website the other day and I noticed that they've added an accessibility widget down in the footer.

So I thought, let's add to take a closer look and see what it does. And this isn't just about curiosity. It's because accessibility has a real business impact.

One recent UK report found that 69% of people who encounter accessibility barriers will just leave a website and not come back. That is a massive chunk of potential users. It's a people's revenue that just disappears. So this accessibility panel offers features like larger text, a larger cursor, line height, different fonts. And if you're a user who needs those features, then having them here sounds really helpful in theory.

But most of these features already come baked in with modern web browsers like Firefox, Chrome, and Safari. And the browser will usually do a much better job than an accessibility widget. Also people who benefit from these features tend to already have these systems set up in a way that just works for them.

But let's say, for example, I don't know about. These built-in browser tools and I've stumbled across this widget in the footer. Let's give it a run through and see how helpful it actually is. Now the feature that I'd most be likely to use is increasing the font size. So let's give that one a go.

We can increase it three times. And now let's go to through to a different page. Let's look at About Us. Once the page loads, did you see that? Once you move to another page on the website, it actually takes a moment for the accessibility widget to catch up. And that's quite a jarring experience if you don't expect it. And even if you do expect it, it's still. A little bit annoying. And small amounts, small moments like this, they really matter.

A recent study by the Baymard Institute found that 23% of people will abandon a checkout when the process feels too confusing or difficult. Accessibility issues absolutely feed into that. Slow fixes unclear navigation, poor error messages, all of those little things add up. So let's reset the widget and test the built-in browser zoom. I couldn't find any keyboard shortcuts to access the widget. But here.
Once we've reset it, I can increase the browser, increase the page size to 200% just by using the keyboard. Now, Passenger has a solid responsive design and that kicks in nicely for me around 200% and I can still navigate around the site. And find exactly what I need without any issues. And when we navigate, did you notice the difference? It's smooth. There's no lag. There's no weird delay. Nothing jumps around. The site just adapts. It feels intentional, like it's built to support that kind of interaction.

And that's because it is. Passenger clearly have spent a lot of time thinking about their great user experience for mobile design. And that really pays off here. And here's the thing. It's really obvious that passenger do care. Adding the widget, the accessibility widget in the footer shows they're thinking about accessibility and they're trying to do the right thing. But the problem is the widget doesn't fix any core accessibility issues. But the good news is they don't actually need it.

With just a few small tweaks to the existing website, they could probably ditch the widget altogether and end up with something that works better for everybody. And honestly, this kind of thing is really common. On websites that are constantly evolving, like Passenger's, accessibility stuff often slips through the cracks. And it's not because people don't care. It's just how fast-paced web work tends to go.

So this isn't about blame, it's an opportunity. Because, here's the thing, 96% of websites currently have detectable accessibility issues on their homepage. That's a phenomenal amount. So, if you fix even some of these issues, you're immediately doing better than most of the internet. And that is a real competitive edge.

Now, I'm going to go and buy myself a new hoodie.RetryClaude can make mistakes. Please double-check responses.