When people hear “website accessibility”, they often picture a complicated compliance project meant for governments and large corporations. In reality, most of the work is about good, thoughtful design that makes a site easier for everyone to use.
Accessibility means people can use your website regardless of how they access it. Some visitors use screen readers that read pages aloud. Some navigate with a keyboard instead of a mouse. Some have low vision, colour blindness or difficulty with fine movements. Others are simply using a phone in bright sunlight with one hand. When we build or audit websites, these are the basics our team checks first.
Write meaningful alt text for images
Screen readers can’t see images, so they read the image’s alternative text instead. If that text is missing, the visitor may hear a file name or nothing at all.
Good alt text describes what matters about the image in context. For a product photo, “Blue cotton office chair with adjustable armrests” is far more useful than “chair” or “IMG_4021”. Purely decorative images, like background patterns, can have empty alt text so screen readers skip them.
In WordPress, you can add alt text in the media library or the image block settings. It takes seconds per image and also helps search engines understand your content.
Check your colour contrast
Light grey text on a white background might look elegant in a design mockup, but it’s hard to read for many people, and on many screens. Text needs enough contrast against its background to be comfortably legible.
Free contrast checker tools let you enter your text and background colours and tell you whether they meet the WCAG guidelines, the widely used web accessibility standard. We check body text, buttons, links and text placed over images, which is a common trouble spot. If a heading sits on a photo, a subtle dark overlay often fixes the problem without changing the design.
Also avoid using colour alone to communicate meaning. A form that only turns a field red to show an error leaves colour-blind users guessing. Add a short message like “Please enter a valid phone number” as well.
Make sure everything works with a keyboard
Try this quick test: put your mouse aside and use only the Tab, Shift+Tab, Enter and arrow keys to move through your homepage. Can you reach every menu item, button and form field? Can you see where you are on the page?
Common problems include:
- Dropdown menus that only open on mouse hover
- Pop-ups that can’t be closed without clicking
- Focus outlines removed by the theme, so you can’t see which element is selected
- Custom sliders or buttons built from elements that keyboards skip
Fixing these usually involves small changes to the theme’s CSS or choosing better-built plugins.
Use headings in a logical order
Headings aren’t just for styling. Screen reader users often jump between headings to scan a page, much like sighted visitors skim. That only works if headings follow a sensible structure: one main heading for the page, then section headings, then sub-sections beneath them.
A frequent mistake is choosing heading levels based on how big they look. If you want smaller text, change the style, not the heading level.
Label your forms clearly
Forms are where accessibility problems directly cost you enquiries. Every field should have a visible label, not just placeholder text that disappears when someone starts typing. Error messages should explain what went wrong and how to fix it, and they should appear near the field in question.
Keep forms short, too. Asking only for what you genuinely need helps everyone, not just people using assistive technology.
Make links and buttons descriptive
“Click here” and “Read more” repeated ten times on a page tell a screen reader user very little when links are read out of context. Better link text describes the destination, like “Read our web design case studies” or “Download the price list (PDF)”.
Buttons should also be large enough to tap comfortably on a phone, with enough space between them that people don’t hit the wrong one.
Add captions and transcripts to video
If your site includes videos with speech, captions help deaf and hard-of-hearing visitors, and also anyone watching with the sound off. Many video platforms can generate automatic captions, but always review them, since automatic captions often get names and technical terms wrong.
Test with real tools
You don’t need expensive software to start. A few useful steps:
- Run your pages through a free automated checker to catch missing alt text, contrast issues and empty links
- Do the keyboard-only test described above
- Try a screen reader, such as NVDA on Windows or VoiceOver on Mac and iPhone, on your key pages
- Zoom your browser to 200 percent and check that content still fits and reads properly
Automated tools catch only part of the picture, so the manual checks matter.
Make it part of your routine
The easiest way to keep a site accessible is to build the habits into everyday updates. Add alt text whenever you upload an image. Check contrast when you pick new brand colours. Test new forms with a keyboard before they go live. Small, consistent care beats a big fix once every few years.
Wrapping up
An accessible website is easier to use, easier to find and more welcoming to every visitor. Start with alt text, contrast, keyboard navigation, clear headings and well-labelled forms, and you’ll have covered many of the most common issues.
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