If it feels like real life is moving to the digital world, that’s because it’s becoming more true by the day. From government services and banks to healthcare providers and public transportation, most institutions and businesses now have their own apps that seemingly provide convenient access.
When 71% of small businesses have a website, 48% have an app, and 27% plan to develop one, it’s vital to consider how many ensure an equitable online experience. According to the World Health Organization, approximately 1.3 billion people live with a significant disability.
Yet, according to the 2023 Digital Accessibility Index Report, only 3% of the web is accessible. The most common issues stem from images lacking helpful information, unclear links, and forms with missing concise labels. The report audited the top sites in several industries and found that, for example, financial services make it challenging to navigate pop-up windows and that more than half of government pages had inactive elements that are impossible to trigger with a keyboard.
In this article, we will discuss website accessibility, how to ensure it, and the most common mistakes.
What is Website Accessibility?
Accessibility isn’t a bonus feature, but what makes a website usable for people with disabilities. If someone can’t navigate with a keyboard or a screen reader, the site isn’t accessible. It’s broken.
Think about Target’s website. They’ve added voice search, adjustable text, and clean layouts that don’t overwhelm. It’s not flashy, but it works, and that’s the whole point.
When you get it right, the site just feels easier for everyone, not only those who need extra support. And that’s when accessibility stops being about compliance and starts being about living and breathing people.
Website Accessibility Standards
Accessibility should never be treated as a checklist or a set of minimum requirements. It is about building websites that real people can actually use.
The first principle is simple: stop approaching accessibility as a matter of compliance. Instead, focus on understanding how people interact with your site, so your choices genuinely support their experience and reflect the way digital expectations keep growing.
At the core of it all are the standards that shape what accessible design looks like in practice. The most referenced framework is the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), developed by the W3C.
However, you shouldn’t stop at quoting WCAG, because that alone doesn’t go far enough. What actually moves the needle is understanding how it applies and changes over time.
At its core, WCAG is built around four key principles. Content must be:
- Perceivable: Users must be able to recognize and process the information presented
- Operable: Users must have an easy time navigating and interacting with the interface
- Understandable: Content and interface must be clear and predictable
- Robust: Content must work across different devices, browsers, and assistive technologies
These aren’t vague ideals. They translate into concrete expectations like offering text alternatives for images, ensuring keyboard navigability, and structuring content with semantic HTML.
Yet, many businesses slip up because they treat these requirements as static checklists that don’t evolve alongside how people actually use the web. Take WCAG 2.2, for example, as it pushes for clearer focus indicators, so keyboard and screen reader users don’t get lost in interactive elements like dropdowns and sliders.
If your site leans on complex UI and you’re not keeping pace, you’re not just risking lawsuits but shutting real people out. But it’s also about usability.
Consider the example of GOV.UK, the British government’s digital portal. This website doesn’t just claim to be accessible. It goes beyond that and builds accessibility into every step of its design and development process. Their teams follow WCAG standards, but they also test with real users who have a variety of disabilities. That commitment surpasses compliance and results in more neat and intuitive interfaces for everyone.
This is the part that often gets overlooked. Accessibility standards don’t just benefit disabled users. They push you to structure your content logically, to make your site more responsive, more readable, and, in general, more inclusive.
So, while WCAG remains the backbone, savvy teams treat it as a foundation, not a ceiling. They look at how accessibility interacts with UX, mobile design, and SEO, and build it into their design systems from the get-go.
The Biggest Mistake in Website Accessibility
Here’s what designers often get wrong about website accessibility.
Treating Accessibility as a Mere Afterthought
It’s easy to tick off a few accessibility tasks and move on. But the truth is, real people with real challenges will interact with your site in ways you might not even think about.
It’s not just about being “good enough” because accessibility means thinking about how someone navigates with a keyboard, listens with a screen reader, or processes a busy layout. It’s not a finish line but more so a part of how you build and maintain things that actually work for everyone.
The Pitfalls of Inadequate Alt Text
Writing “image” or “picture” in alt text doesn’t help anyone because it’s just noise for screen reader users. The goal isn’t to state what’s obvious but to give meaningful context.
Accessibility Needs to Be Holistic
The problem grows when websites don’t take accessibility into account from the start. You can’t just add a few features because navigation, interactive elements, and forms all need to work with assistive technologies. Even a site that’s technically “accessible” can still leave users frustrated if the layout is confusing or hard to use.
Building Accessibility from the Start
You can always tell when accessibility wasn’t part of the original design because it feels clumsy. Maybe the buttons are technically labeled, but they don’t make sense out of context. Or a screen reader reads three menus before getting to the main content. These aren’t just minor bugs. Instead, these are signs that people were an afterthought.
What Constitutes Website Accessibility
The following are the key elements that contribute to website accessibility:
Text Alternatives That Add Value
Don’t just label an image “dog.” Be helpful and describe what matters: “A brown Labrador chasing a frisbee in a crowded park.”
Alt text should clarify the image’s purpose, not just its contents, especially for users relying on screen readers to understand visual context.
Keyboard-First Design
If users can’t navigate your site with a keyboard alone, it’s broken for many. Every button, link, and menu must be reachable via Tab, with straightforward visual focus states.
Contrast and Customization
Text needs to stand out. Not just pass WCAG checks but be readable in the real world. Avoid pastel-on-pastel designs.
Let users enlarge text without the layout collapsing. A user with cataracts shouldn’t have to wrestle with your font choices because they’ll likely leave.
Structure That Guides, Not Confuses
Predictability helps. Logical heading levels, clear sectioning, and repeatable layouts reduce cognitive load. A user with ADHD, for instance, shouldn’t have to hunt for the “Submit” button every time because it should always be where they expect it.
Assistive Tech Compatibility Isn’t Optional
Screen readers rely on proper HTML. Misused tags and unlabeled inputs cause chaos. Mark up your content like someone’s experience depends on it because it does.
The Best Practices for Website Accessibility
Here’s how to do website accessibility right, not just by the book, but in a way that genuinely serves all your users.
1. Build with Inclusive UI/UX from the Start
When we say you should follow UI/UX practices for inclusive design, we don’t just mean picking accessible color palettes. It is about designing every interaction with real users in mind.
Make sure that buttons are large enough for people with motor impairments. Use error messages that actually explain the problem. Instead of something useless like “Invalid input,” tell people exactly what is wrong and how they can fix it.
Label every form field clearly, not inside the field as a placeholder, but as real text above or next to it. Placeholders disappear the second someone types, which leaves screen readers, and many users, guessing.
Drop-down menus, modal windows, and carousels must all work for keyboard and screen reader users, not just mouse users. Avoid using CAPTCHA puzzles that can’t be completed with assistive technology; if you must use them, offer accessible alternatives like simple logic questions.
Accessibility should not be a last-minute fix. If you build it into your first mockups, you save yourself hours of rework later and create a better experience from the start. However, you can partner with a full service digital agency to ensure accessibility is woven into your project from day one.
2. Structure Content for Easy Navigation
A clean, logical layout is not just nice to have. For many users, especially those with screen readers, it’s vital.
Always use headings in the right order, and don’t jump from H1 to H4 because you like how it looks. Headings are how assistive tech reads and organizes a page.
Write link text that actually says where it leads, like “Download the 2024 Pricing Guide,” not vague junk like “Click here.”
Good structure also helps search engines understand your site, so it is a win for accessibility and SEO.
3. Multimedia accessibility and movement controls
Adding captions to videos and transcripts to podcasts is not just about helping users who are deaf or hard of hearing. It also helps people who watch videos muted, whether they are in a noisy cafe, a quiet office, on public transit, or simply prefer reading over listening.
Captions and transcripts make your content faster to skim, easier to search, and much more flexible across different devices and settings.
Beyond that, flashing or moving elements must come with controls to pause, stop, or hide them. Rapid animations can trigger problems for people with vestibular disorders, epilepsy, or migraines. But uncontrollable movement can be frustrating even for users without diagnosed conditions, so keep that in mind.
4. Keyboard navigation and Real-World Testing
Test your website navigation yourself. Try tabbing through your site.
If you lose track of where you are or get stuck somewhere, so will your users. Focus indicators must always be visible and easy to spot, and users should never have to guess where they are on the page.
Take it a step further and switch on a screen reader and listen to how your headings, links, and image descriptions sound. Fill out your forms and notice whether the error messages actually help you correct mistakes or leave you guessing.
As you test, pay attention to the flow. Include skip links that let users jump straight to the main content, and make sure dynamic elements like auto-refreshing charts or pop-ups are properly announced with ARIA roles.
5. Monitor Your Website Uptime And Health
Even the most accessible website becomes completely inaccessible during downtime. Regular website monitoring helps identify and resolve potential issues before they impact visitors, particularly those using assistive technologies. Users with disabilities may become confused or frustrated when encountering unexpected outages, assuming their assistive tools are malfunctioning rather than recognizing site unavailability. Beyond accessibility concerns, downtime directly impacts your bottom line through lost revenue and damaged brand reputation. Remember: true accessibility means your site is not only usable by everyone but also reliably available whenever they need it.
Conclusion
Website accessibility should be a priority just as much as page speed optimization, mobile responsiveness, or site security. These are all equally necessary elements for a functional and aesthetically pleasing website that doesn’t exclude any user.
When you pay attention to inclusion, you’re also boosting your SEO rankings. Follow our suggested practices and combine them with the right tools for greater accessibility to create an immaculate and equitable UX.
