Website Accessibility Guide: What the Law Requires and Why It Matters
Website accessibility is both a legal requirement and a competitive advantage. Inaccessible sites face litigation risk, lose revenue from users with disabilities, and rank below accessible alternatives. Here is what the standards require and where to start.
Website accessibility is the practice of designing and developing websites that are usable by people with visual, auditory, motor, and cognitive disabilities. It is governed by established technical standards (WCAG), referenced by legal frameworks (ADA, Section 508, EN 301 549), and increasingly enforced through litigation. In 2024, over 4,600 ADA-related web accessibility lawsuits were filed in U.S. federal courts - a 14% increase from the prior year.
At Through The Glass Creatives, accessibility is built into every web engagement - not as a compliance checkbox, but as a design quality standard. A site that works for users with low vision, motor limitations, or screen reader dependence typically works better for every user. For related standards context, see wcag-compliance-guide and ada-website-compliance.
This guide covers what accessibility actually requires, where most sites fall short, and the highest-ROI improvements to make first.
Who Website Accessibility Affects
Approximately 1.3 billion people worldwide live with some form of disability, and a significant proportion of them use the web with assistive technology - screen readers (like JAWS or NVDA for blind users), keyboard-only navigation (for users with motor limitations), captions (for deaf or hard-of-hearing users), and high-contrast or zoom modes (for users with low vision). Making a site accessible to these users is not a niche requirement - it is reaching a population segment with significant purchasing power that inaccessible competitors cannot serve.
The Most Common Accessibility Failures
Missing Alt Text on Images
Images without alt text are invisible to screen reader users. The alt attribute should describe the content and function of the image. Decorative images should have empty alt attributes (alt="") so screen readers skip them. Product images, diagrams, and informational graphics must have descriptive alt text that communicates what a sighted user would understand from seeing the image.
Insufficient Color Contrast
WCAG 2.1 AA requires a minimum contrast ratio of 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text (18pt or 14pt bold) between the text color and its background. Light gray text on a white background, or colored text on a colored background where the hues are similar in lightness, typically fails this requirement. Users with low vision or color blindness may be unable to read text that fails contrast requirements.
Non-Keyboard-Accessible Interactions
All interactive elements - links, buttons, form fields, dropdown menus, modals, accordions - must be operable via keyboard alone. Users with motor disabilities who cannot use a mouse depend on Tab, Enter, Space, and Arrow keys to navigate and interact. Custom UI components built with <div> or <span> elements instead of semantic HTML often lack the keyboard event handling and ARIA roles required for keyboard accessibility.
The Business Case for Accessibility
Beyond legal compliance, accessible sites have measurable SEO advantages: proper heading hierarchy, alt text, and semantic HTML are the same signals that improve screen reader experience and search engine crawlability. Sites that pass WCAG 2.1 AA typically have cleaner HTML structure, faster load times (because they avoid accessibility-breaking JavaScript hacks), and higher engagement from users on assistive technology. The what-is-a-design-system article covers how a design system can encode accessibility standards across every component - the most efficient way to maintain compliance at scale.
"Accessibility is not a compliance tax on good design - it is a quality standard that improves the experience for every user. The discipline of making a site keyboard-navigable, high-contrast, and screen-reader-readable almost always reveals UX problems that were harming sighted users too." - Mherie Vic, TTGC
Where to Start: The Highest-ROI Accessibility Improvements
Run an automated accessibility scan (axe DevTools, Wave, or Google Lighthouse accessibility audit) to identify all automatically detectable failures - this typically catches 30-40% of total accessibility issues
Fix all missing alt text, empty link text, and form labels - these are the highest-frequency, lowest-effort fixes
Fix color contrast failures using a contrast checker tool - adjust text or background colors until the ratio meets WCAG AA thresholds
Test keyboard navigation through the entire site - every interactive element should be reachable and operable without a mouse
Add visible focus indicators - browsers have default focus outlines that CSS often inadvertently removes; these must be restored for keyboard users
Get an accessibility audit and compliance roadmap for your site
Book a free Brand and Growth Assessment and see exactly how Through The Glass Creatives would approach it.
Sources
- WebAIM, "Screen Reader User Survey #10" (2024)
- UsableNet, "ADA Web Accessibility Lawsuit Report 2024" (2024)
- W3C, "Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2" (2023)
- Deque Systems, "State of Accessibility: Automatic vs Manual Detection" (2025)
