What is web accessibility: a simple guide to understanding and applying it
A website is accessible when anyone can perceive it, understand it, navigate it and act on it, regardless of their abilities, their age or the devices they use. It is not an extra feature: it is a quality of how the site is built.
Who it helps
The usual picture is a blind person using a screen reader, and it is correct, but incomplete. Accessibility also benefits people with low vision or colour blindness, people who cannot use a mouse, people who are deaf or have attention and reading difficulties, and anyone in a temporary situation: an arm in a cast, direct sunlight on the screen or a slow connection.
The most common barriers
- Text with poor contrast against the background.
- Images without alternative text.
- Forms with unlabelled fields.
- Menus and windows that cannot be used with a keyboard.
- Links such as “click here” that do not say where they lead.
The reference standard
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), from the W3C, organise the requirements into four principles: perceivable, operable, understandable and robust. They have three conformance levels (A, AA and AAA), and level AA is the one required by European regulation. The latest version is 2.2.
Where to start
- Measure. An automated audit and a manual review show you where you stand.
- Prioritise. Fix first what blocks key tasks: access, purchase, contact.
- Build accessibility into the design. It is far cheaper to do it right from the start than to repair it later.
- Test with people. No tool replaces someone who uses the site with assistive technology.
Want to know how your website is doing?
Request an accessibility audit and we will explain what to fix first.
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