Web & SEO
What is web accessibility?
Web accessibility is the practice of building websites that people with disabilities can perceive, navigate, and use, including those relying on assistive technology.
New to Bolt? Sign up free.
Technical definition
The reference standard is the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, published by the W3C. WCAG organizes requirements under four principles, that content be perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust, and grades them at three conformance levels: A, AA, and AAA. Level AA is the benchmark most regulations and procurement policies cite.
Common requirements include sufficient color contrast, text alternatives for images, full keyboard operation, visible focus indicators, labeled form fields, and semantic HTML that screen readers can interpret.
In plain terms
Can someone use your site without a mouse, without sound, or without seeing it? If yes, it is accessible. If no, some portion of your visitors cannot buy from you.
Most of what makes a site accessible also makes it clearer for everyone else.
Why it matters
The share of adults with a disability affecting web use is large enough that inaccessible sites turn away real customers every week, silently. Captions help people in noisy rooms. Contrast helps people outdoors. Keyboard navigation helps people with a broken trackpad.
For a small business the highest-value changes are few and cheap: real contrast between text and background, alt text on images that carry meaning, form fields with visible labels rather than placeholder text alone, and a site that can be operated by pressing Tab. Automated checkers catch a useful fraction of problems. They do not catch whether your alt text says anything, which is why a human still has to read it.
