Website Accessibility: Why It Matters And What You Can Do

Website accessibility might be something you’ve briefly heard about, or it could be something you’re not aware of at all. Either way, you’re in the majority, but the importance of the topic cannot be overstated. In this post, we’ll cover what it is, why it’s so important to your business, and ways you can start making your website more accessible right now.

What Is Website Accessibility

Tim Berners-Lee, founder of the World Wide Web, had this to say about his creation:

“The power of the Web is in its universality.

Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect.”

That quote sums up website accessibility. It ensures that people of all abilities, including disabled people, can access websites and digital content. Everyone should be able to perceive, understand, interact with, and navigate online information.

Website accessibility covers a wide range of disabilities, including auditory, cognitive, neurological, physical, speech, and visual disabilities. However, its benefits go beyond that. It also supports people with temporary barriers, such as a broken arm, situational limitations like holding a baby or dealing with screen glare, and even those using mobile devices on a slow connection.

Why Website Accessibility Matters

24% of the UK population has a disability, so you’d think businesses would be doing all they can to support such a large group of people. Unfortunately, this is not the case. More often than not, websites are built in ways that do not accommodate people who rely on screen readers, tabbed navigation, or simply an intuitive and understandable interface.

In fact, an incredible 96% of websites are deemed inaccessible. As you’d expect, this has a big impact on businesses. It costs UK businesses over £17 billion each year, while 7 in 10 disabled customers said they would leave websites that are inaccessible. Additionally, 86% of disabled people said they paid more for a product or service from an accessible website.

Simply put, we should be doing better. Not only is it the right thing to do ethically, but it also makes clear business sense to prioritise website accessibility. Fortunately, making improvements is easier than many businesses think.

What Can I Start Doing Right Now?

While some aspects of website accessibility depend on your website builder or developer, it’s important to remember that accessibility is a shared responsibility. Everyone involved in managing your website has a role to play, and there are practical steps you can take right now to make your site more accessible.

Add Alternative Text to Images

If you’re using a CMS, website builder, or even uploading an image on social media, you’ve probably seen an “alt text” field. Many people ignore this, but it’s crucial for users who rely on screen readers. Alt text describes an image to those who may have difficulty seeing it, allowing them to understand important vis0ual context.

For guidance on writing effective alt text, check out this resource: W3C Alt Text Decision Tree

Use Plain Language

Have you ever landed on a webpage and felt completely lost within the first minute? Overly complex wording, long-winded sentences, and poorly structured information can make content difficult to understand.

Using clear, simple language benefits everyone, including people with cognitive disabilities or lower reading literacy. It also makes your content easier to digest and helps position your business as more inclusive.

Does Your Form Have Labels?

Here’s a quick accessibility check: if you have a contact form on your site, go to the page and click on a label. If it highlights the corresponding input field, your form is likely accessible. If it doesn’t, people using screen readers won’t know what each input field is for.

If your label is inside the input field and disappears when typing, it means there’s no proper label set up at all. This creates accessibility issues for people who rely on screen readers.

The Tab Test

Here’s another simple check: can you navigate your website using only the Tab key? Try pressing Tab to move through links, buttons, and the menu. Can you see a clear visual indicator showing where you are?

If you can’t navigate properly or there’s no visible focus indicator, your site has accessibility issues. This makes it difficult for keyboard users, including those with motor impairments, to use your website.

Consider Accessibility

As we mentioned earlier, accessibility needs to be factored in at every stage of a project—design, development, and ongoing maintenance. Always check with your developer what they do to ensure your website is accessible. Even better, ask them about WCAG compliance. If they haven’t heard of it, that’s probably a red flag.

Before committing to a web design agency, you can run their website through the WAVE Chrome extension. This tool highlights accessibility errors, including contrast issues. While it’s useful for spotting technical problems, keep in mind that it doesn’t catch every accessibility issue.

What Should My Developer Be Doing?

While you don’t need to understand all the technical details, it’s useful to know a few key checks to ensure your developer is building your site correctly—or at least to question their approach.

One important factor is semantic coding. Simply put, this means using the right elements for the right purpose. For example, navigation menus should be wrapped in a <nav> tag, and headings should follow a logical order—your main heading should be an H1, followed by H2s, then H3s, and so on.

A neat way to check this yourself is by right-clicking on a webpage and selecting “Inspect” (or pressing Ctrl + Shift + I on Windows or Cmd + Option + I on Mac). This will open the browser’s developer tools, where you can see the code behind each element. If you notice text styled to look like a heading but marked up as a <div> instead of an H1-H6, or navigation links that aren’t inside a <nav> tag, this could indicate accessibility issues.

Having some awareness of these best practices is helpful, but the most important step is to choose a web design business that truly understands website accessibility.

Your Next Website Accessibility Steps

For businesses, embracing accessibility and inclusivity can be a game changer. From a website accessibility standpoint, you now have some actionable steps to take. You should understand the importance and business case for accessibility, know some practical tests you can run, and start factoring accessibility into everything you do online.

The sooner you start improving your website’s accessibility, the more people you can reach and support. Take that first step today—whether it’s running a quick accessibility check or having a conversation with your web developer