Accessible websites are those which, traditionally, are considered to facilitate easy access for any person with a disability or some form of impairment. We prefer to think of an accessible website as being inclusive to everyone, i.e. one that is easy to use by every visitor to your site regardless of perceived abilities.
Typically, an accessible site might consider the needs of the elderly, those who are visually or hearing impaired, cognitive or neuro-diversities, and motor function or movement impairments.
Of course, any one person can have a combination of needs when visiting your website, hence why an inclusive approach considers all potential visitors to your site.
There are many factors involved in making a site accessible, but a few of them include:
- The use of clear large fonts, with sufficient contrast against the background to make them easier to read for someone who is visually impaired.
- Images and multimedia files should also have substitute text or transcripts, so that someone who cannot see an image or hear a video file does not lose the meaning that it conveys.
- Moving images, fancy backgrounds or flashing screens can all have an impact on accessibility (consider the potential reaction of those with epilepsy or neuro-diversity).
- Logical page structure to make it easy for a speech browser to read through, with clear and appropriately sized headings in order of importance. This is where it is vital for your site to use good coding practices (which also benefits SEO)
- Colour blindness and colour weakness should be considered, and an accessible site should not make exclusive use of colour to convey meaning.
Legal Requirement
Besides a legal obligation not to discriminate, as a business it is to your advantage to have an accessible website when these are typically easy-to-use and high performing in many aspects (e.g. potentially faster load times and search engine ranking improvements). If you have ever been left frustrated by a website that’s difficult to navigate or read, and perhaps without an obvious way of finding or buying what you’re looking for, it becomes clear that accessibility and usability go hand in hand.
To appeal to businesses it is often said that your site should be accessible to increase your potential audience because those with disabilities have wallets too. That may be true, but by making your site highly usable for everyone that visits you are increasing all of your sales potential.
The importance of legal compliance should not be underplayed either. In extreme cases this can lead to legal action, such as the class action against Target.com, a famous test case by the National Federation of the Blind.
Although extreme cases such as this are unlikely to affect your business, it is a matter of growing concern and regulation, and let’s face it simple good manners to people with differing abilities. Government and charity websites are typically the most forward thinking in taking account of accessibility, as are any businesses which expect to have a large number of elderly or visually impaired visitors for example.
With the usual pressures of business - sales and survival being paramount to the small business, many small businesses still don't consider this to be a priority, however it should be a serious concern.
World Wide Web Consortium
There are in fact various levels of compliance as laid out most authoritatively in the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) WAI "Web Accessibility Initiative" pages here.
In the simplest terms there are three levels of accessibility compliance as laid out on the W3C site:
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Priority 1
- A Web content developer must satisfy this checkpoint. Otherwise, one or more groups will find it impossible to access information in the document. Satisfying this checkpoint is a basic requirement for some groups to be able to use Web documents. Satisfying all the Priority 1 checkpoints gives you Level 'A' Accessibility compliance.
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Priority 2
- A Web content developer should satisfy this checkpoint. Otherwise, one or more groups will find it difficult to access information in the document. Satisfying this checkpoint will remove significant barriers to accessing Web documents. Satisfying all the Priority 2 checkpoints gives you Level 'AA' Accessibility compliance.
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Priority 3
- A Web content developer may address this checkpoint. Otherwise, one or more groups will find it somewhat difficult to access information in the document. Satisfying this checkpoint will improve access to Web documents. Satisfying all the Priority 3 checkpoints gives you Level 'AAA' - the highest level of accessibility compliance.
Accessibility Audit
On existing websites where accessibility is an important requirement, we can conduct an accessibility audit and user testing. This validates your website against a number of accessibility criteria, works through every aspect of the site to ensure that it fully meets the agreed level of accessibility, and leaves you with a final report on how and why the site meets the required level of accessibility.
It should be noted that as with most things on the web, there are often compromises made between different criteria.
For example, you might want certain kinds of imagery and colours to fit your branding, or moving images and animations to enliven your site. However, aspects of this might conflict with accessibility best practice.
Preventing spammers hitting your contact forms by implementing a "captcha" (e.g. displaying random distorted letters a visitor has to enter) can be problematic without an accessible solution. Whilst not perfect, Google’s reCaptcha v2 (the “I’m not a robot” checkbox) is acceptable but reCaptcha v3 is better for accessibility.
As you can see, accessibility, as with many things on the web, is not entirely straightforward but it is not impossible to achieve a website that is more inclusive to all. Channel Digital will be delighted to help make your website as accessible to your audience as possible.
This article was updated in 2025.
