Accessibility is just good design. Full stop.

Accessibility often gets treated as a checklist to work through at the end of a project. We think that’s backwards. An accessible website isn’t a special version of a good website — it is a good website.

It helps more people than you think

Around one in five people in the UK has a disability. Add in everyone reading on a phone in bright sunlight, holding a coffee in one hand, or getting older and finding small text harder to read, and ‘accessibility’ starts to look a lot like ‘everyone’.

Where to start

• Contrast. Light grey text on a white background looks elegant and reads terribly.
• Alt text. Describe your images for people who can’t see them — and for search engines too.
• Keyboard navigation. Can you use the whole site without a mouse?
• Clear link text. “Click here” tells a screen reader user nothing.
• Forms that explain themselves. Proper labels, helpful error messages.

Design for the edges and the middle takes care of itself.

The bonus? Accessible sites tend to load faster, rank better and convert more. Doing the right thing rarely pays this well.