Website accessibility guides

The ADA does not name a technical standard for private-business websites, but WCAG is the benchmark most often used in practice.

Do not ignore it, and do not pay or admit anything before speaking with an attorney who handles accessibility claims.

The DOJ's Title II rule requires state and local government web content and mobile apps to meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA.

WCAG is the W3C's set of web accessibility success criteria, organized into levels A, AA and AAA.

The European Accessibility Act has applied since 28 June 2025.

Section 508 applies to U.S.

Run a free automated scan, then spend ten minutes using the page with only a keyboard, zoomed to 200 percent.

WAVE is the friendliest visual checker, axe DevTools and Lighthouse suit people comfortable with browser developer tools, Pa11y suits automation, and Accessibility Insights adds guided manual tests.

Scanners reliably catch rule-based problems such as missing form labels, low text contrast, empty buttons and invalid ARIA.

Costs range from free automated scans to quoted manual audits, and the price depends on how many pages and templates are tested, how deep the testing goes and whether fix guidance and retesting are included.

An overlay is a script that adds a toolbar and automatic adjustments to a site without changing its underlying code.

A good accessibility statement says which standard you aim for, what you have tested, what you know is not yet fixed, how to reach a person and when you last reviewed it.

A VPAT is the Voluntary Product Accessibility Template; an Accessibility Conformance Report (ACR) is the completed document that describes how a product meets accessibility standards.

Shopify provides accessibility requirements for themes and publishes a conformance report for its checkout, but accessibility of your store depends on the theme you choose, the apps you add and the content you publish.

Wix's Accessibility Wizard scans your site from the editor, lists detected issues and manual tasks, and a Monitor rechecks the published site.

Squarespace gives you tools such as alt-text fields and color controls, but meeting accessibility goals is up to the site owner: choose high-contrast colors, describe images, use real heading levels, write clear link text and label forms.

A WordPress theme tagged accessibility-ready has passed a manual review against the theme team's minimum standards, but the tag does not guarantee conformance with WCAG AA.

Normal text needs a contrast ratio of at least 4.5 to 1 against its background, large text needs 3 to 1, and interface parts such as input borders and icons need 3 to 1.

Write alt text that gives the same information or function as the image, in a short phrase, and use an empty alt (alt="") for purely decorative images.

Give every field a visible label that is programmatically tied to it with for and id, do not use a placeholder as the only label, mark required fields in text, and show errors in words next to the field and in a summary.

Anyone using a keyboard needs a visible indicator of where focus is.

Every link and button needs a name that says what it does, in its visible text or in an accessible label.

Use one H1 for the page's main title, follow with H2s for major sections and H3s inside them without skipping levels, and use real heading tags rather than bold or large text.

WCAG 2.5.8, new in WCAG 2.2 at Level AA, asks that pointer targets are at least 24 by 24 CSS pixels, unless enough spacing separates them or another exception applies.

At 400 percent zoom (a 320 pixel wide view) content should reflow into a single column without horizontal scrolling, text should resize to 200 percent without loss, and the page must never disable pinch zoom.

Test the whole path a customer takes: find a product, choose options, add to cart, check out and manage an account.

Decide on WCAG 2.2 Level AA before design starts, check colors and components early, test templates as they are built, scan and hand-test before launch, and recheck after every release.

Many accessibility fixes (descriptive alt text, clear headings, meaningful link text, page titles, a stated page language) also give search engines clearer information.

A small business website generally needs accessible pages, a privacy policy if it collects personal information, cookie notices for visitors in places that require them, email that follows CAN-SPAM, and a secure payment setup.

Scope by template instead of by page, scan each template, fix the findings, hand-test the key flows, recheck and give the client a dated record.