What Is Web Accessibility and Why It Matters

For a long time, I thought website accessibility was just about the alt attribute for images. That all changed when I first tried navigating a regular website without a mouse and then turned on a screen reader. It turned out a page that looks flawless can be practically inaccessible to some people.

What Is Accessibility

Accessibility means that a website can be used by everyone, not just people with good eyesight and a mouse in their hand. Some people cannot see the screen and listen to the website through a screen reader. Others, due to hand tremors, cannot click a button precisely with a mouse and use only the keyboard. Still others zoom the page to 300%. The rules used to test websites are described in WCAG, an international standard.

I find it helpful to compare this to a ramp at the entrance to a building. It’s built for people in wheelchairs, but it’s also used by parents with strollers and delivery people with carts. The same goes for websites: what’s designed for some is more convenient for everyone.

Lesson One: “Looks Right” Doesn’t Mean “Works Right”

Take, for example, a row of buttons on the home page. A sighted person immediately understands that this is a menu. But a screen reader will read the links one after another and won’t indicate that this is a group or how many items it contains. This can be fixed with just a few lines of code: the buttons are converted into a standard HTML list, while the visual appearance remains unchanged.

The popular Bootstrap library has a similar issue. Upon loading, it silently removes the tooltip text from the exact location where a screen reader looks for it. A sighted user sees the tooltip, but a user with a visual impairment hears nothing.

Lesson Two: The Keyboard Is a Fully Functional Way to Navigate a Website

A pop-up window that cannot be closed with the Esc key becomes a “locked room” for someone who doesn’t use a mouse. There’s also a less obvious problem: after closing the window, the keyboard focus often resets to the top of the page. Imagine being sent back to the first page of a book every time you close a window. The right approach is to remember where the user opened the window from and return them there.

Lesson Three: Understand First, Then Fix

Automated checks and auditors sometimes make mistakes. For example, a standard browser drop-down list is sometimes flagged as a violation, even though it is accessible on its own. The opposite can also happen: a simple change can hide a pitfall. Imagine a login window that, when closed, triggers the “continue as guest” flow. If you simply allow it to be closed using the Esc key, the user will be able to bypass the required login. Therefore, any accessibility fix isn’t just a change to a single attribute, but a change in behavior that must be fully understood.

Why This Is Important for Business

In many countries, ensuring accessibility is required by law. In the U.S., this is the ADA, and in the European Union, it’s the European Accessibility Act, which has been in effect since June 2025. Companies face lawsuits over inaccessible websites. If you plan for accessibility from the very beginning, it will cost much less than reworking a finished product. Plus, an accessible website is simply easier to use and attracts more users.

Try It Yourself

Put down your mouse and spend five minutes navigating your website using only the keyboard. Can you tell where the focus is right now? Can you close the window? Can you reach the main button? The answers might surprise you.

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