The people you’re not reaching… and why WCAG isn’t telling you

You’ve followed the guidance. The colour contrast passes. The font is sans serif. The layout ticks all the right boxes. On paper, your creative is accessible.

But in practice? Something still isn’t landing.

That important message you crafted — it’s not getting seen. Not because it’s being ignored. But because for some, it’s impossible to read.

We’re not talking about mild friction or aesthetic preference. We’re talking about people with disabilities — people with low vision, colour blindness or cognitive processing differences who physically and neurologically cannot access your message when it’s poorly designed.

And if they can’t read it, they can’t act on it. They can’t engage, share or feel seen in it. They’re simply, and silently left out.

That’s not just a creative gap. It’s an inclusion failure.

The truth is, compliance doesn’t always equal clarity. Passing accessibility checks doesn’t guarantee your message will connect — especially not with the people most at risk of being excluded.

That’s where RCG comes in.

What is RCG?

The Readability Confidence Grade (RCG) is a practical, human-centred way to measure how readable your creative really is. It goes beyond the binary of pass/fail and looks at how people actually experience your content in the real world.

RCG doesn’t replace WCAG. It builds on it. Because while WCAG might tell you the contrast is “acceptable,” it won’t flag that your font is razor-thin and unreadable on a bright mobile screen. It won’t catch the background image that fights for attention with the headline. And it certainly won’t tell you that the sentence you wrote; the one packed into a dense block, becomes a wall for someone with ADHD, dyslexia or just a tired brain on a Tuesday afternoon.

RCG catches what WCAG can’t. It reflects how real people interact with real creative, across devices, attention spans, and lived experience.

Why This Matters

When content becomes hard to read, it doesn’t just make life difficult; it quietly shuts people out.

People with low vision may struggle to make out text that’s too light, too small, or too close to the background.
Those who are colour blind may not be able to distinguish key buttons, labels or data.
Neurodivergent users may find cluttered layouts or long paragraphs difficult to process.
And older adults or anyone experiencing fatigue may simply move on — not because your message didn’t matter, but because it wasn’t easy enough to see.

And that’s the real cost: when your creative doesn’t include these groups, they’re not just excluded — they’re unaware. They don’t know what you’re offering, what you stand for, or how they fit into the picture. They're just… not reached.

So the question is: can you afford that?

Can you afford to have people miss your message simply because they couldn’t read it?

Inclusion is Execution

RCG isn’t about perfection. It’s about getting better — about measuring what others overlook and fixing the small details that unlock real inclusion.

It’s for teams who care deeply about representation, clarity and connection but don’t always have the tools to spot where things go wrong.

If that sounds like you, start with one asset. A post, a flyer, a campaign visual. We’ll show you how it performs through a real-world lens and who you might be unintentionally leaving out.

Because the people you’re not reaching? They’re exactly the people you need to.

Let’s fix that.
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