Usability and Accessibility Market will grow by 25% this Year, claims Research

The combined UK usability and accessibility market will be worth more than £100m in 2005, according to research published by E-consultancy, the London-based internet marketing group.

The forecast is taken from E-consultancy's 175-page "Usability and Accessibility Buyer’s Guide 2005". The guide includes 3 pages of best practice tips (a checklist to help buyers choose the right partner) and 21 in-depth vendor profiles as well as the result of the market research conducted at the start of this year.

The UK market, worth £90m in 2004, will grow by a further 25% in 2005, to between £108m to £117m, driven by increased awareness of the benefits of improved website usability and accessibility.

Accessibility services have quickly grown to account for at least a fifth of market revenues. E-consultancy CEO Ashley Friedlein says the research shows that spending in this area has risen rapidly on concerns about being prosecuted, with companies obliged to comply with the Disability Discrimination Act. A related concern is over the sustainability of accessibility work long-term.

Overall, revenues earned by specialist usability and accessibility consultants or agencies amounted to around £20m for 2004; a figure projected to rise to £25m in 2005. Interactive agencies and in-house teams account for the remainder of this market.

Key findings, trends and issues include:
* The majority of consultants or agencies are bullish about prospects in 2005 and beyond, suggesting that turnover will increase by 10% - 60%.
* There is increasing demand for qualified HCI professionals – recruitment is a big issue.
* Accessibility spending is being driven by legal concerns.
* This comes with suggestions that the accessibility market has a limited shelf-life of 3 years or so.
* The accessibility market will be threatened if there are no high-profile prosecutions when companies fail to comply with the DDA – ongoing growth may be determined by litigations (or the lack of them).
* Usability and accessibility companies seem united on how to move the industry forward:
'The cause of independent consultancies is also helped by a united approach to moving the industry forward. The leading industry players have similar views about best practice which means that a consistent message about the benefits is filtering through to organisations. The leading players seem committed to growing the industry as a whole rather than advancing their own cause at the expense of the integrity of the whole market. This is both beneficial and rather unique.'
* Client companies are increasingly likely to see usability testing as an essential part of the development process – usability is no longer seen as ‘nice-to-have’ but vitally important.
* Blue chips and public sector organisations lead the way in spending, while SMEs lag way behind.
* The biggest spenders are: financial services, online retail, public sector / e-government.
* Human testing is far more effective than software/tools (which are much cheaper).
* Most work carried out by specialist consultancies is on a project-to-project basis, but clients are increasingly paying a retainer for services.
* Success-based fees are still very rare – measurement can be problematic but some consultants are keen for performance-related contracts to be phased in.
* Day rates for an experienced consultant average £750 - £1,200.

Vendors profiled in the "Usability & Accessibility Buyer’s Guide" include: Amberlight; Bamps.com; Bunnyfoot; cxpartners; Effortmark; Elemental Creative; Fhios; Flow Interactive; Openia; Optimum.web; Serco; Surfability; System Concepts; The Usability Company; Usability by Design; Usability Gains; UsabilityWorks; Userfocus; User Vision; Web Usability Partnership; and Webcredible.

"Usability and Accessibility Buyer’s Guide 2005" can be sampled as a download from the link below.

Associated Link: The E-consultancy report

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