The internet should be a place where everyone can access information, services, and opportunities—regardless of their abilities.
In the UK, around one in five people have a disability, which means millions rely on accessible websites for everything from booking appointments to staying in touch with loved ones.
But for many, everyday site elements like navigation menus or online forms can become insurmountable obstacles if not designed with accessibility in mind.
Imagine trying to browse your favourite site without being able to use a mouse, or attempting to read content you can’t see. Suddenly, the digital world that promises so much freedom and convenience becomes a source of frustration and exclusion.
This is why web accessibility should be at the forefront of any choices we make about design or development on our own sites.
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What is web accessibility?
While it can be disheartening that not everyone reaps the benefits of the web, there’s a lot you can do to make your sites accessible to more people, including:
- People who are visually impaired
- People who are deaf
- People who cannot use a mouse
- People who use special assistive tools to access the web
- People who are colour-blind or prone to seizures brought on by flashing images
- People with limited bandwidth who can’t view images
In the UK, website accessibility is mainly covered by the Equality Act 2010. This law says that businesses, organisations, and public services must not discriminate against people with disabilities.
This means your website should be usable by everyone, including people who are blind, deaf, or have other disabilities.
For public sector organisations (like government websites, councils, NHS services, and schools), there are extra rules. Since 2018, the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations require these organisations to meet certain accessibility standards (called WCAG 2.1 AA) and publish an accessibility statement explaining how accessible their site is.
In short:
- All websites in the UK must not exclude disabled users (Equality Act 2010).
- Public sector websites must meet specific accessibility standards and be open about their accessibility (Public Sector Accessibility Regulations).
If websites don’t follow these rules, organisations can face complaints, legal action, and reputational damage. Making your website accessible isn’t just a legal requirement—it’s also the right thing to do.
Web accessibility is all about breaking down barriers that prevent visitors from interacting with your content.
You can accomplish this by following defined guidelines when designing your site. That’s it — in many cases, a few characters or words of code in the right places will do the trick. In some situations, the work can get more involved, but it’s still worthwhile.
Whether your reasons are moral, ethical or legal, learning about web accessibility should definitely be on your agenda.
The accessibility community is active on social media and there are always worthwhile conversations happening. Search for the “a11y” (shorthand for “accessibility”) hashtag on X and other social media. “A11y” originated from the letter “A” + 11 letters + y in the word “accessibility.”
Web accessibility guidelines
To figure out how to make a website accessible, webmasters turn to the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) group of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). These aren’t laws or regulations, they are simply voluntary guidelines for making your website welcoming to all, without turning aside people with disabilities.
The WCAG guidelines (currently version 2.2) are organised into a checklist.
Don’t be overwhelmed by all the information at that link. The document is a comprehensive effort to define accessibility standards, and you don’t have to meet every one of them to make your site accessible to most people. In fact, checklist items are categorised as A, AA or AAA. Companies can aim for compliance at level A (lowest), AA (mid level), or AAA (highest).
AA is the target level for many businesses.
AAA is typically reserved for special dedicated software.
The guidelines are organised around four principles:
Perceivable
Information and user interface components must be presentable to users in ways they can perceive. This includes standards such as providing text alternatives for non-text content.
Operable
User interface components and navigation must be operable. For example, all functionality must be available from the keyboard.
Understandable
Information and the operation of user interface must be understandable. This includes, for example, a requirement to identify the primary language of the page.
Robust
Content must be robust enough that it can be interpreted reliably by a wide variety of user agents, including assistive technologies. This means being certain to use valid markup, for example.
Conforming with level A brings basic compliance to your site. With each level you step up, the more accessible your site becomes.
7 tips for hitting the basics of web accessibility
Hitting the basics of web accessibility is pretty easy to do, although when you dive deeper the issues and solutions can get a bit more complex.
If you can’t get into full WCAG 2.2 compliance right away, there’s still plenty you can do to make your site more accessible. Here are seven easy starting points:
- Identify the language of the document.
- Use meaningful page titles.
- Use alt tags on images.
- Don’t require a mouse.
- Provide transcripts for audio.
- Make link text meaningful.
- Proof your page for proper tag closure.
Let’s explore what each of these principles mean.
1. Identify the language of the document
Help screen readers identify the primary language used in the document. You can easily do this in html: <html lang="en">.
2. Use meaningful page titles
Every page title should adequately and briefly describe the content of the page. Every page should have a unique title that distinguishes it from other pages.
3. Use alt tags on images
Make sure all images include equivalent alternative text (alt text). So the pic of your company headquarters, for example, would be defined as <img alt= "company headquarters photo" src="hq.jpg">. Without the alt, the image essentially doesn’t exist for a visually impaired visitor, search engines, or people who have turned off images.
4. Don’t require a mouse
Everything should be workable from a keyboard, as many people cannot use a mouse, including many older users and people lacking fine motor control. If your site is workable from a keyboard, it will also be workable from an assistive technology that mimics a keyboard, such as speech input.
5. Provide transcripts for audio
Without a transcript, your audio file is likely inaccessible to people who are deaf or hard of hearing. As an added plus, your transcript will be searchable and add to your SEO. If you don’t want to do it yourself, use a transcription service.
6. Make link text meaningful
Users should be able to determine the purpose of the link from the link alone and/or its context.
7. Proof your page for proper tag closure
Missing open or close brackets can really mess up a screen reader so be sure your pages are properly formatted. Use this markup validation checker to find potential errors.
You’ll notice that a lot of these items are also good for SEO, so you’ll get double bang for your buck on any accessibility work you do.
The above steps are starter moves, but they’ll greatly improve your site’s accessibility with minimum work. See the WCAG guidelines for even more you can do.
Web accessibility resources
It’s possible to assess your site with one of these accessibility assessment tools (for some of these you’ll have to trade your contact info for the report):
Chrome Dev tools: Dev tools has a built-in assessment tool you can access under the Audits tab. This basically checks if a page is properly marked up for screen readers and looks at other accessibility issues.
AChecker: Check individual HTML pages for conformance to accessibility standards.
PowerMapper: Checks up to 10 pages for accessibility plus other problems such as broken links and SEO issues.
If you’re using WordPress, you’ll be happy to hear that all new or updated code released into the WordPress core and bundled themes conforms to WCAG 2.0 Guidelines at level AA. In the WordPress theme repository, you can search for themes with the “accessibility-ready” tag.
Web accessibility and your workflow
Ensuring web accessibility is an ongoing process. Make it automatic by following these three steps:
- Become familiar with WCAG guidelines and practices.
- Build a checklist into your workflow to make sure new content meets accessibility needs.
- Scan and update existing content.
Web accessibility checkers will give you an idea of your starting point. From there, you can organise a plan of attack that will make your site open to all users, or at least as many as possible. Any step you take in the right direction is a good step.
