Once I've deflected most other objections, I usually end up face to face with someone with enough seniority to set priorities.

Authority or responsibility are objections that come from people who can't make the call. This one though comes from people who can. The founder or the chief product officer. It's someone who controls the product strategy and is telling me to my face that accessibility isn't part of it.

When I hear this, I know they're not deflecting. It's their decision and it's hard to change their minds.

Sometimes accessibility genuinely isn't a priority. A startup in its first year trying to find product-market fit has real triage decisions to make. They don't have infinite capacity. Saying that accessibility isn't a priority right now can be an honest and reasonable assessment of where that business is.

I can only nod and acknowledge it. If I pretend otherwise, I lose all credibility fast. I can't tell someone their priorities are wrong without sounding like I don't understand their business.

Most of the times though, "not a priority right now" means "not a priority ever." Unless something forces it onto the roadmap.

Priorities don't reorganise themselves.

The thing that's not urgent today is still not urgent next quarter unless something changes in the status quo. And when nothing changes, accessibility issues compound. Every sprint they ship without thinking of accessibility is debt they're adding to. The longer it's not a priority, the more expensive it becomes to make it one.

When they say they're focused on growth, features or user retention, it all sounds like a business that knows exactly what it's doing. It sounds like leadership. It sounds like strategy.

But strategy implies they've weighed up the options. Most of the time, accessibility was never weighed at all. It was just missing from the conversation. And that's not strategy.

Strategy or no strategy, here's someone that is actually engaging with my question and giving me a real answer. I could make a better case for why accessibility should be their priority. But that's never going to work. Product people tend to be protective of their roadmaps.

I need to find a way to stop competing with their priorities and start attaching to them. If they're protective of their roadmap, I tell them every feature they ship without accessibility is technical debt that will slow that roadmap down later. If growth is their priority, accessibility becomes a growth lever. If retention is their priority, I make the argument that inaccessible products lose users.

I don't want to ask them to add something new on their roadmap. I want to show them accessibility is already in what they care about. They just haven't seen it yet.

Alright five down one to go. What if they don't have users with disabilities?