About one in four adults in the US lives with some kind of disability, according to the CDC. Many of them use screen readers, keyboard navigation, captions or zoom to get around the web. If your website does not work for them, you lose customers, and you may face a legal claim.
This is a practical guide, not legal advice. For legal questions about your business, talk to an attorney.
What the ADA has to do with websites
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires businesses open to the public to be accessible to people with disabilities. The Department of Justice has said this applies to businesses' websites too, and website accessibility lawsuits and demand letters are common, including against small businesses. In 2024 the DOJ also adopted WCAG 2.1 AA as the standard for state and local government websites.
What WCAG is
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are the technical standard most often used to judge whether a website is accessible. Level AA is the usual target. You do not need to read the whole standard; most of it comes down to a handful of habits.
The practical checklist
- Text alternatives: every meaningful image has alt text that describes it. Decorative images have empty alt text so screen readers skip them.
- Color contrast: text stands out clearly from its background, including on buttons and over images.
- Keyboard access: everything works with a keyboard alone, and you can see where the keyboard focus is.
- Headings: pages use real headings in a logical order, so screen reader users can jump around.
- Forms: every field has a visible label, errors are explained in words, and required fields are clear.
- Links and buttons: they say where they go or what they do. "Read the pricing guide" beats "click here."
- Video and audio: captions for video and transcripts for audio.
- Zoom: the page still works when text is enlarged to 200 percent.
- Motion: nothing flashes, and animations respect the "reduce motion" setting on people's devices.
Be careful with quick-fix overlays
Some tools promise to make any site compliant with a single line of code. Accessibility experts and many disabled users say they often do not fix the underlying problems, and businesses using them still get sued. Fixing the site itself is the reliable route.
How to check your site
- Try using your site with only the keyboard: Tab, Shift+Tab, Enter and the arrow keys.
- Run a free automated checker such as WAVE or Google Lighthouse. They catch common issues, though not everything.
- Turn on your phone's screen reader (VoiceOver on iPhone, TalkBack on Android) and try to complete an inquiry.
Accessible sites are better sites
Clear headings, readable text, descriptive links and fast pages help everyone, and they help your SEO too. Search engines read your site much like a screen reader does.
How we help
We build every website with accessibility in mind and can audit your current site against WCAG 2.1 AA, then fix what we find. Get in touch if you would like a review.