ACCESSIBILITY
7 MINS
The accessibility problems we’ve known about since 2001, for 24 years
There is a misconception that better tooling equals better outcomes. It doesn’t. Often, it just scales our negligence faster.
Twenty-four years ago, the industry identified the fundamental ways interfaces fail people with disabilities. Today, despite a massive digital payments revolution in India, we are seeing the exact same failures in our banking apps. The technology has evolved, but the exclusion has remained static.
Unclear or unlabeled controls
Nielsen (2001):
Users could activate buttons and links but often couldn’t tell what action they would trigger, especially when labels were missing or ambiguous.
What we still see in Indian banking apps (2025)
Icon-only buttons for key actions (Scan, Pay, Confirm, Retry) announced as generic “button” elements that leave disabled users unsure of their intent.
OTP input fields announced as “edit box” with no instruction, so users are unsure how many digits are required or what state they are in.
No cue for where to ‘scratch’ for scratch card-based rewards
90% of Indian finance-sector platforms had link accessibility issues, including non-descriptive or missing labels.
100% of audited platforms showed ARIA-related issues, indicating poor programmatic labeling
Impact
Visually impaired users are unable to complete payments independently. Many rely on memory or external help for routine tasks, which is risky and impacts their freedom.
In a study, while trying to change the UPI pin, an issue almost every participant faced was locating the option to do so. They had to navigate through multiple menus to find it, as it was hidden in the secondary Kebab/More menu.
Loss of structure and orientation
Nielsen (2001):
Users with disabilities struggled to understand where they were on a page or how content was organised once visual layout cues were removed.
What we still see in Indian banking apps (2025)
Missing or incorrect heading structures on web dashboards
Inconsistent focus order on mobile apps (screen readers jump unpredictably)
Deeply nested menus for critical actions like PIN reset, transaction history, or dispute resolution
Impact
Screen reader users cannot scan or orient themselves. Tasks that take seconds for sighted users can take minutes, or become impossible, leading to higher rates of task abandonment.
Almost all participants in this study faced some kind of difficulty in locating the correct option and had to navigate through multiple menus that were not ordered keeping a hierarchy of information in mind for the unsighted. One of the participants had to take hints from the researcher to perform the action as they felt frustrated by going inside each menu to eventually find themselves in the wrong one.
Visual-only feedback
Nielsen (2001):
Errors, confirmations, and state changes were often shown visually but not conveyed programmatically, leaving users unsure whether tasks succeeded
What we still see in Indian banking apps (2025)
Errors indicated only through red outlines or warning icons
Success/failure states shown visually, without audio or haptic confirmation, such as QR-scanner screens that don’t announce state changes like ‘scanning’, ‘failed’, ‘success’.
Graph-heavy dashboards with no textual summaries
Impact
Users with low vision or color blindness miss errors. Blind users don’t know whether a transaction succeeded, leading to mistrust and repeated actions.
Complex workflows break assistive technology first
Nielsen (2001):
The more steps, conditions, and edge cases a flow has, the more likely it is to fail for users with disabilities.
What we still see in Indian banking apps (2025)
Multi-step KYC flows with face detection, blinking, or camera alignment
CAPTCHAs with no accessible alternatives
OTP + timeout + resend logic that isn’t announced clearly to screen readers
Impact
Users are locked out at onboarding itself. In extreme cases, accounts are denied access because users cannot perform visual verification tasks. The alternative becomes to visit brick-and-mortar branches, which might not also be built in the most accessible way.
Accessibility failures are usability failures, amplified
Nielsen (2001):
Accessibility problems rarely affect only disabled users, they expose deeper usability flaws.
What we still see in Indian banking apps (2025)
Poor contrast affects elderly users and outdoor usage
Small tap targets affect users with motor impairments and large-screen phones
Confusing flows increase error rates for everyone, not just assistive-tech users
Finance-sector platforms showed an average of 91.55 accessibility errors per home page.
Impact
Banks lose users who are not officially “disabled” but still struggle, such as seniors or first-time digital users who may have low digital literacy.