There is a strange thing we do in marketing..
We spend enormous amounts of time talking about conversion rates, page speed, SEO, branding, animations, beautiful interfaces, and whether the button should be six pixels farther to the left.
Meanwhile, someone visits the website using a screen reader and can't figure out what the hell the navigation is doing.
Or someone who can't use a mouse gets trapped inside a dropdown menu.
Or someone with low vision encounters pale gray text on a slightly less pale gray background because apparently we decided that contrast is no longer fashionable.
The website looks great.
It just doesn't work for everyone.
That's the problem with accessibility.
A website isn't truly accessible if only people without disabilities can use it.
Web accessibility means designing and developing websites so that people with disabilities can perceive, navigate, understand, and interact with the content and functionality.
That includes people who are blind or have low vision, people who are deaf or hard of hearing, people with mobility or motor disabilities, people with cognitive or neurological disabilities, and people who use assistive technologies such as screen readers, voice control, magnification software, or alternative input devices.
And accessibility isn't some obscure technical concern that developers can quietly shove into the basement.
It's part of good web design.
It also happens to be a legal issue for many organizations, an important consideration for user experience, and a damn good way to make sure your website isn't unnecessarily excluding people.
Let's talk about how to do it properly.
Website accessibility is the practice of designing and developing websites that can be used by people with disabilities.
The goal isn't to create a separate, special version of the internet for disabled users.
The goal is to make the same website usable by as many people as reasonably possible.
That might mean:
- A blind person can navigate the site using a screen reader.
- Someone with limited mobility can operate the site without a mouse.
- Someone with low vision can read the text without squinting at their monitor.
- Someone using voice control can identify and activate buttons and links.
And here's something worth remembering:
Accessibility benefits people who don't identify as disabled, too.
Captions are useful in a noisy airport.
Keyboard navigation is useful when your mouse decides to die.
Clear instructions are useful when you're tired.
High-contrast text is useful when you're looking at your phone in bright sunlight.
Accessible design is often just good design with fewer assumptions about how people are going to interact with your website.
Because inaccessible websites create barriers between people and information.
That's the simplest answer.
And those barriers are not hypothetical.
The WebAIM Million's 2025 analysis of one million popular home pages found that 94.8% had detectable WCAG 2 failures. The most common issues included low-contrast text, missing alternative text, missing form labels, empty links, empty buttons, and missing language declarations.
That number is depressing.
It is also useful.
Because it means accessibility problems aren't some rare edge case that only happens on terrible websites built in 2007.
They're everywhere.
And automated testing doesn't catch everything, either. WebAIM explicitly notes that automated tools have limitations and that the absence of detected errors does not mean a page is fully accessible or WCAG-conformant.
In other words, you cannot install an accessibility checker, receive a report saying “Congratulations, 94%,” and go home feeling morally superior.
Accessibility requires actual testing.
And actual thought.
There is also a deeper reason to care about accessibility.
The internet has become infrastructure.
People use websites to apply for jobs, purchase food, access healthcare information, attend school, manage finances, communicate with government agencies, shop, travel, and conduct the mundane business of being alive.
If those websites are inaccessible, people with disabilities can be excluded from things that everyone else takes for granted.
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities recognizes access to information and communications technologies, including the internet, as part of accessibility and equal participation.
The principle is straightforward:
If information and services are available online, people shouldn't be arbitrarily prevented from accessing them because the website was designed without them in mind.
That's not an SEO trick.
It's not a conversion-rate optimization tactic.
It's not a nice little feature you add to the backlog if the budget survives.
It's about whether people can use the thing you built.
This is where things get complicated, so let's resist the urge to give you a nice, comforting yes-or-no answer.
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in areas covered by the law. The U.S. Department of Justice has consistently taken the position that the ADA applies to services, programs, goods, and activities offered on the web by covered organizations.
But there isn't one universal rule that says:
“Every website in America must score 100% on this particular accessibility checker.”
That's not how the law works.
Different organizations can have different obligations.
For example, Title II applies to state and local governments, and the DOJ has established specific technical requirements for their web content and mobile applications based on WCAG 2.1 Level A and AA. The compliance dates were extended in 2026, with different dates depending on the size and type of public entity.
Title III applies to businesses and organizations that qualify as places of public accommodation, and the DOJ's guidance explains that inaccessible web content can prevent people with disabilities from accessing goods, services, and other offerings provided online.
So if you're wondering whether your particular website has a legal accessibility requirement, don't rely on a blog post to make that determination.
Talk to someone qualified to give legal advice.
But here's the part that doesn't require a lawyer:
You should make your website accessible anyway.
The legal question is important.
The ethical and practical question is even simpler.
If you can make your website usable by more people, why wouldn't you?
If you've spent any amount of time researching web accessibility, you've probably encountered the acronym WCAG.
It stands for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.
WCAG is developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) through its Web Accessibility Initiative.
The current WCAG 2.2 standard organizes accessibility requirements around four principles:
- Perceivable
- Operable
- Understandable
- Robust
In plain English:
Can people perceive your content?
Can they operate your website?
Can they understand what the hell is going on?
Does the website work with the technologies people use to access it?
WCAG contains specific success criteria for things like text alternatives, keyboard accessibility, captions, contrast, resizing text, forms, navigation, focus, and more.
You don't need to memorize the entire WCAG specification to build a more accessible website.
You do need to understand the principles.
Now for the useful stuff.
There are a lot of accessibility considerations, and WCAG is considerably more comprehensive than the handful of items below.
But these are some of the fundamentals every web designer, developer, content writer, and website owner should understand.
1. Provide Useful Alt Text for Images
Alt text is a text alternative associated with an image.
It allows people using screen readers and other assistive technologies to understand information conveyed by images.
But there's an important distinction here:
Not every image needs a long description.
If an image is purely decorative and adds no meaningful information, it may be appropriate to use empty alternative text so assistive technology can ignore it.
If an image communicates something important, describe the relevant information.
For example:
Bad:
“image.jpg”
Also bad:
“beautiful smiling woman marketing professional business office laptop”
Better:
“Marketing manager reviewing campaign results on a laptop.”
And if the image contains a chart with important data, simply describing it as “marketing chart” isn't enough. The important information needs to be available in text somewhere.
Think about the question:
If the image disappeared, what information would the user lose?
That's what your alternative text should help preserve.
Alt text can also help search engines understand images, but don't turn accessibility copy into an excuse for keyword stuffing.
Write it for the person who needs it.
2. Write Descriptive Link Text
There's a big difference between:
Click here
and:
Read my guide to conducting keyword research
The second tells you what you're clicking and where you're going.
The first tells you almost nothing.
This matters especially for screen-reader users, who may navigate a page by jumping from link to link without reading every surrounding sentence.
If every link on your page says “learn more,” “read more,” or “click here,” you've essentially created a collection of mystery doors.
Nobody knows what's behind them.
Use descriptive link text whenever practical.
And yes, descriptive links can also help search engines understand the context of linked pages. But, again, accessibility is the reason to do it.
SEO is the bonus.
3. Use Clear, Readable Typography
Your font choice matters.
So does the size.
So does spacing.
So does contrast.
You don't need to use Arial on a white background forever because you're afraid of accessibility.
You can have personality.
You can use beautiful typography.
You can design something distinctive.
Just make sure people can actually read it.
WCAG includes requirements around text resizing, reflow, spacing, and visual presentation. Text should remain usable when users enlarge it, and your layout shouldn't collapse into an unusable mess simply because someone needs larger type.
In other words:
Pretty is not a substitute for legible.
4. Get Your Color Contrast Right
This is one of the most common accessibility failures on the web.
And it drives me slightly insane because it's so easy to check.
WCAG 2.2's Level AA criterion for normal text calls for a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 between text and its background. Large text has a lower threshold of 3:1.
So that fashionable light-gray text sitting on a slightly darker-gray background?
Maybe don't.
Web designers love subtlety.
People with low vision would generally prefer to be able to read the sentence.
The 2025 WebAIM Million found low-contrast text on 79.1% of the one million home pages it analyzed, making it the most commonly detected accessibility issue.
That's an astonishing number.
Test your contrast.
Then test it again after you change the design.
5. Don't Communicate Information Through Color Alone
Color is useful.
Color alone is not sufficient.
If you make required form fields red, for example, don't assume everyone will perceive that distinction.
Someone with color-vision deficiency may not see the same difference you see.
Use additional cues:
- Text
- Icons
- Labels
- Patterns
- Clear instructions
The general principle is simple:
If removing the color would make the meaning disappear, you've probably relied on color too heavily.
6. Make the Website Keyboard Accessible
This one is fundamental.
Not everyone uses a mouse.
Some people use a keyboard. Others use alternative input devices or assistive technologies that emulate keyboard interactions.
WCAG requires functionality to be operable through a keyboard interface, with limited exceptions for functionality that inherently depends on a user's movement path.
Try using your own website without touching the mouse.
Use:
Tab.
Shift + Tab.
Enter.
Arrow keys.
Can you reach everything?
Can you tell where the keyboard focus is?
Can you open menus?
Can you submit forms?
Can you close dialogs?
Can you escape from a modal?
Can you actually complete the task you came to the website to complete?
If not, you've got work to do.
And don't forget focus states.
If someone can't tell where they are on the page, keyboard accessibility becomes a rather theoretical concept.
7. Use Semantic HTML and Logical Headings
HTML isn't just decoration.
A heading should actually be a heading.
A button should actually be a button.
A link should actually be a link.
A list should actually be marked up as a list.
This is one reason semantic HTML matters.
Assistive technologies use the underlying structure of a page to help users navigate it.
Headings are particularly important. Screen-reader users may navigate through headings to understand the structure of a page and jump directly to the section they want. WebAIM's research found that heading problems remain common across the web.
So don't choose an H2 because you like how the font looks.
Choose it because the content is an H2.
CSS can make it look however the hell you want.
8. Label Your Forms Properly
Forms are one of the easiest places to create a completely unnecessary accessibility nightmare.
A form field should have a clear, programmatically associated label.
Don't rely solely on placeholder text.
Don't make users guess what information you're asking for.
And don't make error messages cryptic.
Instead of:
“Invalid input.”
Tell the person what went wrong and what they need to do.
For example:
“Enter a valid email address, such as name@example.com.”
WebAIM found missing form labels on 48.2% of the home pages in its 2025 analysis.
Nearly half.
Forms are not complicated enough to justify getting this wrong.
9. Make Video and Audio Accessible
If your website contains video, provide captions.
If your content relies on audio, consider transcripts or other appropriate alternatives.
Captions aren't just for deaf or hard-of-hearing users, either.
People watch videos in quiet offices.
People watch them on airplanes.
People watch them while their children are asleep.
People watch them without sound because they forgot their headphones.
The W3C's WCAG guidance includes multiple success criteria for captions, transcripts, audio descriptions, and other alternatives for time-based media.
Accessibility has a funny way of becoming useful for everyone.
10. Don't Use Flashing or Rapidly Blinking Content
Unless your goal is to turn your website into a neurological ambush, don't use rapid flashing content.
Certain flashing patterns can trigger seizures in people with photosensitive epilepsy.
WCAG 2.2 includes specific thresholds intended to reduce this risk. The standard does not simply say “never animate anything”; it addresses the frequency, size, and characteristics of flashing content.
So yes, animation is fine.
Motion is fine.
Interaction is fine.
Just don't build a website that looks like a rave had a nervous breakdown.
11. Make Content Understandable
Accessibility isn't only about screen readers and keyboard navigation.
The content itself matters.
Write clear instructions.
Use predictable navigation.
Don't make users guess what a button does.
Give forms understandable labels.
Explain errors.
Avoid unnecessarily complicated interactions.
If the user has to conduct an archaeological expedition to figure out how to accomplish a basic task, your interface has failed.
This is particularly important for people with cognitive and learning disabilities, but again, clarity benefits everyone.
Here's where we need to kill another misconception:
An accessibility checker is not a certificate of accessibility.
Automated tools are useful.
Use them.
But understand what they can and cannot tell you.
WebAIM specifically warns that automated evaluation tools have limitations and that passing automated checks does not mean a page is fully accessible.
WAVE
WAVE is one of the accessibility testing tools I recommend starting with.
It identifies many common accessibility and WCAG-related issues and provides information about what it found.
It's a great first pass.
It is not the final word.
Accessibility Checker
Accessibility Checker provides automated accessibility testing and reports on potential issues.
Again, use it as part of your process rather than treating the result as a definitive accessibility certification.
Manual Testing
This is the part people don't want to hear.
You have to actually use the website.
Try:
- Navigating with only a keyboard
- Zooming the page
- Increasing text size
- Using a screen reader
- Testing forms
- Checking focus states
- Watching videos with sound turned off
- Checking color contrast
- Testing on mobile
- Testing interactive components such as menus, modals, accordions, and carousels
Automated testing catches some problems.
Humans catch the rest.
Here's where I'd be careful.
Website accessibility is not something I'd describe as a direct Google ranking factor.
Google doesn't have a magical “accessible website” score that you can optimize and watch climb from 63 to 94.
But accessibility and SEO overlap in some very useful ways.
For example:
- Descriptive link text can help people and search engines understand links.
- Proper headings help organize content.
- Alt text provides information about images.
- Semantic HTML helps communicate structure.
- Clear content improves usability.
- Transcripts and captions make media content more accessible and provide text that can be indexed.
- Good navigation helps both users and search engines understand a site.
But don't reverse the logic.
Don't make your website accessible because you're hoping Google will reward you.
Make it accessible because people are using the website.
If SEO benefits from that work, wonderful.
But accessibility is not an SEO trick.
It's the actual point.
This deserves its own section.
You've probably seen accessibility widgets that promise to make a website accessible with one line of code.
Be skeptical.
Some tools can provide useful functionality.
But you cannot slap an accessibility widget onto an inaccessible website and declare victory.
Accessibility is a property of the actual experience.
If your navigation is broken for keyboard users, a little accessibility icon floating in the corner doesn't magically fix it.
If your form fields don't have labels, a widget doesn't excuse the underlying markup.
If your video has no captions, a compliance overlay doesn't change that.
The best accessibility work happens during design, development, content creation, and testing—not as a cosmetic layer added after the website is finished.
Build it in.
Don't bolt it on.
Here's the thing I wish more people understood about accessibility:
You're not designing for “disabled users.”
You're designing for human beings.
Some people see differently.
Some people hear differently.
Some people move differently.
Some people process information differently.
Some people use keyboards.
Some people use screen readers.
Some people use voice commands.
Some people are temporarily injured.
Some people are getting older.
Some people are trying to use your website on a phone while carrying a baby and drinking coffee and wondering why they agreed to leave the house in the first place.
Human beings are varied.
The web should accommodate that.
Website accessibility isn't about making your website boring.
It isn't about stripping away every interesting design decision.
It isn't about passing an automated checker and printing the results on a plaque.
And it certainly isn't something you should care about only because you're worried about SEO or getting sued.
It's about building a website that people can actually use.
Start with the fundamentals:
- Write useful alt text.
- Use descriptive links.
- Make text readable.
- Check your color contrast.
- Don't rely on color alone.
- Make everything keyboard accessible.
- Use semantic HTML.
- Structure your headings properly.
- Label your forms.
- Caption your videos.
- Provide alternatives for audio content.
- Avoid dangerous flashing content.
- Test with actual assistive technologies.
- Use automated tools as a supplement, not a substitute for human testing.
You don't have to become an accessibility specialist overnight.
You do have to stop treating accessibility like somebody else's problem.
Because when your website doesn't work for someone, they don't experience your beautiful design.
They experience a locked door.
And if you have the ability to open that door, you should probably fucking open it.
