Accessibility debt describes the gap between a product’s current accessibility state and full conformance, built up over time when accessibility is treated as optional or deferred during feature development. Like technical debt, small unresolved issues compound, and a design pattern with an accessibility flaw often gets copied into new features before anyone catches or fixes the original problem.
Organizations sometimes formally track accessibility debt alongside other engineering backlogs, prioritizing it by severity and user impact, which tends to produce steadier, more sustainable progress than letting it accumulate silently until a lawsuit or complaint forces an urgent, disruptive remediation effort.