A polished website can still put a barrier between you and a client
Website accessibility concerns whether people with different abilities and ways of using technology can perceive, navigate, understand and operate the experience. It belongs in design, content, development and testing. A useful review combines relevant standards, manual checks and input from people with disabilities; an automated score alone cannot establish that the website works for everyone.
Put the advice into practice
Give your next major prospect a clearer reason to choose you
Plan the content, design and enquiry pathways around the work you want to win.
Discuss your website projectWhich business tasks need to work?
Start with the actions a prospective client needs to complete: understand a service, compare information, use navigation, read a document and make contact. Review those tasks with different input methods, display settings and assistive technologies.
A beautifully styled menu is still a barrier if it cannot be operated with a keyboard. An enquiry form can appear complete while leaving an error message unavailable to a screen reader. Accessibility turns attention towards the experience behind the visual presentation.
How do the accessibility principles guide the review?
W3C WAI’s accessibility principles organise requirements around information being perceivable, interfaces being operable, content being understandable and implementation being robust enough for different technologies. Use the relevant requirements to examine actual tasks.
| Task | Practical questions to investigate |
|---|---|
| Use the navigation | Can the menu be reached, opened and closed without a pointer? Is focus visible and its order coherent? |
| Understand a diagram | Is the meaningful information available as appropriate text, rather than only colour or an image? |
| Complete a form | Are labels, instructions, errors and success states understandable and available to the relevant technology? |
| Read and enlarge content | Does the layout remain usable when text or the page is enlarged? |
| Use video or audio | Are the necessary captions, transcripts and descriptions provided for the content? |
What would a task-based review uncover?
Consider a hypothetical professional firm whose enquiry form asks a visitor to choose a service. The field’s visual placeholder disappears when selected, and the error message appears only as a red border. A keyboard user cannot easily see which control has focus.
The repair is more specific than “make the form accessible”. The field needs a persistent, correctly associated label. The error needs a meaningful explanation and an appropriate relationship with the field. Focus and the completion state need testing. The form should then be reviewed through the whole task again.
This example illustrates a review method, not a complete conformance test. The relevant standard and implementation determine the full set of requirements.
What can automated checks contribute?
Tools can identify certain detectable issues and help monitor regression. They are useful inputs to a review. They cannot judge every image description, establish whether instructions make sense in context or reproduce the experience of every person using the website.
W3C WAI’s evaluation resources describe a broader approach to testing. Agree the scope, methods and responsible reviewers before treating a score as a release decision.
What should the website brief include?
Record the target accessibility standard and version, the templates and tasks covered, the documents and media included, the testing methods and how findings will be resolved. Establish who supplies accessible content and who maintains it after launch.
Include accessibility in design review and content preparation rather than waiting for final testing. A late change to a component used across many pages can affect layout, interaction and approval. Earlier checks make the requirements part of the implementation.
How does publishing affect accessibility?
New articles, documents and campaign pages can introduce fresh barriers. Maintain heading structure, descriptive links, appropriate image alternatives and accessible document production. An approved template helps, but it does not make every future item correct automatically.
Give editors practical guidance tied to the work they publish. A report chart, a service diagram and a decorative brand image need different treatment. Review representative updates and keep a route for visitors to report a problem.
What should happen after a finding?
Record the affected task, the observed barrier, the relevant requirement and the proposed repair. Verify the fix in the public experience and retest related components. Keep unresolved items visible to the people responsible for the website.
Grendesign’s website design work can include an agreed accessibility scope. The wireframe approval guide helps bring content and interaction decisions into the project earlier.