Web accessibility means making sure people can use your website whatever their abilities: people with low vision, colour blindness, hearing loss, or difficulty using a mouse. It’s often treated as a legal box to tick. It’s better thought of as customer service.
Who it helps
Disabilities are common, and many are temporary or situational: a broken wrist, a bright screen in sunlight, an older parent with reading glasses. When a site works for them, it tends to work better for everyone.
Simple improvements with a big effect
- **Readable text.** At least 16 pixels for body text, with strong contrast against the background.
- **Descriptive links and buttons.** “Book a consultation” rather than “Click here”.
- **Alt text for images.** A short description of what each meaningful image shows, read aloud by screen readers.
- **Keyboard access.** Every menu, button and form can be used with the Tab and Enter keys, with a visible outline showing where you are.
- **Clear forms.** Labels that stay visible, and error messages that say what to fix.
- **Captions for video.** Helpful for people with hearing loss and for anyone watching with the sound off.
- **Headings in order.** They help screen reader users jump through a page, and help everyone scan.
How to check your site
- Try using your site with only the keyboard.
- Zoom the browser to 200% and see if the page still works.
- Run a free checker such as WAVE or the accessibility report in Google’s Lighthouse.
Accessibility tools and overlays
Widgets that add an accessibility menu can help some visitors adjust text size and contrast, but they don’t fix underlying problems on their own. Build the basics into the site itself.
We check accessibility basics on every site we launch, because a site more people can use is a site more people can buy from.