How To Set Digital Accessibility KPIs That Leadership Actually Understands
If you’re trying to push digital accessibility inside a company, leadership usually asks the same thing: “Cool - how do we measure progress?” And if your answer sounds like a WCAG lecture, eyes glaze over.
The trick is to translate accessibility into metrics leadership already understands - risk, revenue readiness, customer impact, and delivery speed. This guide shows how to set accessibility KPIs that are simple, trackable, and clear enough for non-specialists, while still being grounded in real accessibility work (and real leadership skills).
What “Accessibility KPIs” Really Means
Accessibility KPIs are measurable signals that tell you whether your product is getting more accessible over time. Not just “we care about accessibility,” but things like:
Are we shipping fewer accessibility bugs?
Are we fixing issues faster?
Are critical user flows usable with a keyboard and screen reader?
Are we procurement-ready when someone asks for documentation?
A good KPI is not a vague promise. It’s a number you can check monthly, with an owner, a baseline, and a target.
Impact on End Users
Bad accessibility KPIs usually lead to bad outcomes:
Teams focus on easy wins (like “0 automated errors”) while keyboard and screen reader blockers slip through.
Fixes get delayed because accessibility is seen as “nice to have” instead of release-impacting.
Users with disabilities hit real blockers in sign-up, checkout, or core workflows.
Good KPIs do the opposite. They make accessibility visible, prevent “we’ll fix it later” behavior, and drive steady improvement without slowing the team down.
How to Identify the Right KPIs for Your Org
Before you pick metrics, answer these two questions:
What does leadership care about most right now?
Common answers: risk, enterprise deals, compliance readiness, product quality, and delivery velocity.
Where is your accessibility process today?
No process yet
Some testing, inconsistent
Regular reviews, but no governance
Mature program with owners, training, and release gates
Once you know your stage, you can pick KPIs that match your “now,” not your “someday.”
If you need a lightweight starting point for testing, check out How To Conduct Accessibility Testing Before Launch (Without Experts)
Step-by-Step Fixes: Set KPIs That Actually Work
Pick 5 KPI categories leadership understands
Use categories that map to business outcomes:
1) Readiness (procurement and compliance readiness)
This keyword matters because leadership loves readiness - it’s easy to picture.
Percentage of key pages with a documented accessibility review completed
VPAT/ACR readiness status (Draft / Reviewed / Buyer-ready)
Percentage of product releases with accessibility sign-off on critical flows
2) Risk (blockers and severity)
Number of critical accessibility blockers in core flows (login, checkout, onboarding)
Percentage of high-severity issues open longer than 30 days
Accessibility regressions per release (issues reintroduced)
3) Delivery speed (time-to-fix)
4) Coverage (what’s actually being tested)
Percentage of critical user flows tested with keyboard + screen reader
Percentage of UI components in design system that meet accessibility checks
PDF coverage if relevant: % of published PDFs that pass basic checks
5) Enablement (training and behavior change)
This is where leadership skills matter - you’re changing habits, not just code.
Percentage of designers and developers trained on your top 10 recurring issues
Number of accessibility review touchpoints added to workflow (design review, PR checklist, QA)
Set baselines first, then targets
Don’t start with big goals. Start with reality:
Run a first scan + a simple manual check on 5-10 key pages
Identify top recurring issues
Baseline your “critical blockers” and “time-to-fix” numbers
Then set targets like:
Reduce critical blockers by 50% in 90 days
Bring high-severity time-to-fix under 14 days
Reach 80% coverage of critical flows with accessibility testing by quarter-end
Make KPIs “owner-based” (so they don’t die)
Each KPI needs:
an owner (PM, Eng lead, Design lead, QA lead)
a monthly check-in
a simple dashboard or tracker
No owner = no progress.
Add one KPI that prevents “checkbox accessibility”
This one saves you from fake wins:
Use tools to keep effort low
Automated checks won’t catch everything, but they surface common issues early, before design debt builds up. If you want this to be easy for teams, use an accessibility checker inside the workflow - Wally’s WAX Accessibility Checker Chrome Extension for quick page checks, and the Wally’s WAX Linter for VS Code to catch issues while building, not after release.
If you’re moving toward automation in release pipelines, you can check out What is accessibility testing and how to add it into CI/CD pipeline
Keep KPIs aligned with a human-facing commitment
Leadership loves documentation that reduces risk. Users love transparency. Pair your KPI program with an accessibility statement so people know what you’re doing and what you’re improving.
If you’re asking How To Create an Accessibility Statement That Actually Means Something, we have you covered.
Call to Action: Make Your Accessibility KPIs Simple, Trackable, and Real
If you want help setting KPIs that leadership immediately understands - and building a process your team can actually follow - book a consultation with Wally. We’ll help you define the right digital accessibility KPIs, set realistic baselines, train your teams, and build a workflow that improves accessibility without turning every sprint into a compliance project.
