Web Accessibility: Why Building Your Site for Everyone Is Also Good Business

Web accessibility means that anyone can use your site: someone who can't see colors well, someone who navigates by keyboard, someone who uses a screen reader, someone with a temporary hand injury or someone who is simply standing in the sun with the screen brightness low. It's a design improvement that benefits everyone.

Why it matters for a business

• More potential customers: you can reach people other sites leave out.
• A better overall experience: contrast, order and clarity help every visitor.
• SEO benefits: alt text, well-structured headings and semantic HTML help Google understand your page.
• Lower regulatory risk: in the European Union, the European Accessibility Act has applied since June 2025 to certain products and services, including e-commerce. If you sell there, consult a legal specialist.

The benchmark: WCAG 2.2, level AA

The W3C's WCAG guidelines are organized around four principles: perceivable, operable, understandable and robust. For most businesses, the reasonable target is level AA. These are the practices with the most impact:

1. Sufficient contrast

Normal text at least 4.5 to 1 against the background; large text and interface components, 3 to 1. Light gray on white, so popular, usually fails.

2. Everything works with a keyboard

Try it: press Tab. Can you reach every link, button and field? Can you always see where the focus is? Never remove the focus outline without replacing it with a visible one.

3. Meaningful alternative text

Every informative image needs an alt that describes its function. Decorative images get an empty alt (alt="") so screen readers skip them.

4. Clear forms

Every field with its own visible, associated label (not just example text inside the field), errors explained in words and a suggestion for how to fix them.

5. Heading structure

One H1, with H2 and H3 subheadings in logical order. People using a screen reader navigate by jumping from heading to heading.

6. Don't rely on color alone

An error in red should also include an icon or text. Links inside paragraphs should be distinguishable by more than color.

7. Touch targets and motion

Buttons that are big enough and well spaced. Animations that respect the “reduce motion” preference, and nothing that flashes.

How to review your site in 10 minutes

1. Navigate the whole page using only Tab, Shift+Tab and Enter.
2. Zoom in to 200% with the browser zoom: is it still usable?
3. Run the Lighthouse accessibility audit and the axe DevTools extension.
4. Check contrast with a color contrast tool.
5. Test the main flow (for example, the contact form) with a screen reader such as VoiceOver or NVDA.