What is accessibility?
Making a website accessible means making sure it can be used by as wide a range of people as possible, including those with impaired vision, cognitive disabilities or impaired hearing, for example.
Legislation already exists for public sector bodies requiring their websites to be accessible (reference: Gov.uk).
The Equality Act (2010) also requires private organisations “take positive steps to ensure disabled people can access services.” It is anticipated this will become a stricter law in the future alongside public sector bodies.
Making your website accessible makes business sense too as it opens your services and content up to a wider audience.
What can you do?
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are the de facto standard way to measure website accessibility (used by UK and international law).
The full guidelines are lengthy, but in summary they require things like allowing users to:
- Increase the size of text
- Increase contrast
- Disable motion of on-page animations
Meet the guidelines and your website will be deemed accessible in the eyes of UK law.
We have 3 options for introducing more accessibility into your website.
