An accessible website helps more people understand your services and contact your business. It also tends to create a better experience for everyone. Readable text, logical pages, descriptive buttons, clear forms, and keyboard-friendly navigation are helpful regardless of how someone uses the web.
This website accessibility checklist gives small businesses a practical place to start.
What does website accessibility mean?
Website accessibility means designing and maintaining content so people with different visual, hearing, motor, and cognitive needs can use it.
Customers may browse using a keyboard, screen reader, voice control, captions, zoom, or high-contrast settings. Accessibility is not a single plugin or setting. It involves decisions across design, content, functionality, and code.
1. Make text comfortable to read
Use a readable font size, sufficient line spacing, and strong contrast between text and its background. Avoid placing important copy over complicated photographs.
Visitors should be able to zoom the page without content disappearing, overlapping, or requiring horizontal scrolling. Keep paragraphs reasonably short and use descriptive headings to separate longer sections.
2. Create a logical heading structure
Headings help visitors scan a page and give assistive technology an outline of its content. Use one descriptive main heading for the page and organize the remaining sections with correctly ordered subheadings.
Do not choose heading levels only because of their visual size. The visual design and underlying document structure should work together.
3. Write meaningful links and buttons
Links should make sense from their labels. “View website plans” provides more information than “click here.” Buttons should describe their action with language such as “Request a quote,” “Call our team,” or “Send message.”
Interactive elements should also be large enough to select comfortably on a touchscreen.
4. Add useful alternative text to images
Alternative text communicates the purpose of an informative image to someone who cannot see it. Keep it concise and relevant to the surrounding content. Describe what the visitor needs to know rather than listing every visible detail.
Decorative images that provide no information should generally be ignored by assistive technology instead of receiving unnecessary descriptions.
5. Test keyboard navigation
Try navigating the website with the Tab, Shift+Tab, Enter, Escape, and arrow keys. You should be able to reach menus, links, buttons, forms, and dialogs in a logical order.
A visible focus indicator should always show which element is currently selected. Keyboard focus should not disappear or become trapped inside a menu or popup.
6. Make forms understandable
Every field should have a persistent, descriptive label. Clearly identify required information and explain errors in plain language. Do not rely only on red or green colors to communicate whether something is correct.
After submission, show a clear confirmation and explain what the customer should expect next. Keep forms as short as the business process allows, especially when customers are likely to complete them on mobile devices.
7. Provide captions and controls for media
Videos containing speech should include accurate captions. Important audio information should have a written alternative. Avoid automatically playing sound.
Visitors should be able to pause moving content, and unnecessary animation should respect reduced-motion preferences.
8. Keep navigation predictable
Use consistent navigation labels and place important links where customers expect to find them. Avoid changing a menu’s behavior unexpectedly from one page to another.
Make the current page or section clear, and provide an obvious way to close menus and dialogs.
9. Check color and contrast
Text, buttons, form controls, and focus indicators need enough contrast against their backgrounds. Information should not depend on color alone.
For example, an error field can use an icon and explanatory message in addition to a color change. Remember to check hover, focus, selected, and disabled states—not only the default appearance.
10. Test beyond an automated score
Automated accessibility tools can identify missing labels, contrast problems, and certain code issues. They cannot determine whether your writing is understandable or whether a customer journey makes sense.
Combine automated checks with keyboard-only navigation, browser zoom testing, mobile-device testing, form submissions, screen-reader checks where possible, and feedback from real users.
A useful monthly accessibility check
Once a month, open your most important pages at 200% zoom and move through them using only a keyboard. Check new images for appropriate alternative text, submit every important form, and review newly added videos or downloadable documents.
Pay particular attention to your contact and quote-request journeys.
Accessibility is ongoing website care
New content, integrations, forms, and design changes can introduce barriers over time. Add accessibility checks to your regular maintenance process and address the most important customer journeys first.
If your organization has specific legal compliance obligations, obtain qualified advice about the standards and laws that apply to it.
WebXGrid builds responsive, usable websites and continues supporting them as business content changes. Explore WebXGrid’s website care plans or ask us about improving your current website.
