Recently, a brand photographer reached out to us after deciding to look into whether her business website needed to be made accessible.
We can usually tell when we're dealing with a small business, so before we even started talking about web accessibility, we asked her to check whether she might actually qualify for an accessibility exemption.
We went through the most basic eligibility criteria together and asked:
Has the business been operating for more than 3 years? – She said yes.
Were annual revenues below 100,000 ILS in each of the last three years? – Again, her answer was yes.
At that point, we let her know she was exempt and that there was no need to make the site accessible. Just to be on the safe side, we told her she should ask her developer to add an accessibility statement noting the exemption due to economic hardship.
That's when the relief wore off — and she was, frankly, not thrilled.
"It's embarrassing to put in writing that I'm exempt because of economic hardship. People will think I'm broke, and that doesn't reflect well on me."
You know what? Her concern made complete sense. After all, a website is part of a business's brand identity, and putting "exempt due to economic hardship" front and center simply didn't sit right with her. Chances are, reading it now, it rubs you the wrong way too.
The solution? A rewording that no client should ever feel embarrassed about.
After some deliberation, we decided to change the phrasing in the accessibility statement. Instead of writing "exempt due to economic hardship," clients who qualify for an exemption now receive a more refined version:
"This website holds an accessibility exemption in accordance with Service Accessibility Regulations, Section 35(f)(g)."
This way, anyone who genuinely wants to look into it can find the full legal details, but no one sees the reason for the exemption spelled out in plain sight.
Ever since that refreshingly candid feedback from our client, this has become our official template for all clients who are exempt from accessibility requirements.