Web Design
Website accessibility: what you must do, and what it costs
The European Accessibility Act is now in force. What it means for an ordinary business site, in practical terms.
Accessibility moved from good practice to legal obligation for a great many businesses when the European Accessibility Act took effect in June 2025. If you sell to consumers in the EU — e-commerce especially — this now applies to you, with exemptions for the smallest enterprises that are narrower than most people assume.
The standard
In practice: WCAG 2.1 level AA. That is the benchmark European enforcement points at, and it is also what Canadian provincial rules such as Ontario's AODA are built on. One standard covers both markets.
What that means concretely
- Contrast. 4.5:1 for body text, 3:1 for large text and interface components. This is the single most common failure and the easiest to fix.
- Keyboard operation. Everything reachable and usable with Tab and Enter, with a visible focus outline. Never remove focus styling — replace it with something better.
- Alt text. Descriptive for meaningful images, empty for decorative ones.
- Form labels. Real labels, associated with their fields. Placeholder text is not a label.
- Headings in order. One H1, then H2s and H3s in sequence. Screen reader users navigate by heading.
- Error messages that say what is wrong in words, not just a red border.
- Video captions for anything with speech.
- Respect reduced motion preferences.
What it costs
Built in from the start: almost nothing. It is a set of habits, not a feature. Retrofitted onto a finished site: typically 10–20% of the original build cost, mostly in colour changes and rebuilding components that were never keyboard-operable.
Overlay widgets
The accessibility toolbar that promises compliance in one line of JavaScript does not work. Disability advocacy organisations have consistently opposed them, they have featured in lawsuits rather than preventing them, and they frequently make screen reader experience worse. Fix the site.
How to check yours in an hour
Run axe DevTools or WAVE on your five most important pages. Then unplug your mouse and try to complete your contact form. Then zoom to 200% and see what breaks. Those three tests find the large majority of real problems, and none of them requires an expert.
Working on something like this?
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