Web accessibility: the detail that separates a pro from an amateur

A site that some of your visitors can't use

Imagine delivering a shop whose door is too narrow for a fifth of your customers. That's exactly what an inaccessible site does: people with low vision, color blindness, those navigating by keyboard, with a screen reader, or simply in bright sunlight on mobile — all run into barriers invisible to the developer who doesn't test for them.

Accessibility (a11y) isn't a layer you add at the end. It's a way of building, from the very first line.

What I check systematically

These aren't exotic cases, they're fundamentals I apply on every project:

• Contrast — text must stand out from its background (a 4.5:1 ratio minimum for body copy). The "elegant" light gray on white is often illegible.
• Keyboard navigation — everything clickable must be reachable with the Tab key, with a visible focus. Many sites remove the focus outline "for design": that's a mistake.
• Alternative text — every meaningful image carries a descriptive alt; decorative images are marked as such.
• Semantic structure — a single <h1>, a logical heading hierarchy, landmarks (nav, main, footer) that screen readers announce.
• Touch targets — on mobile, a button that's too small is a button you miss.

Accessibility doesn't constrain design. It disciplines it. Contrast and focus requirements almost always produce a clearer interface for everyone.

The direct link to SEO

What many overlook: Google reads a page like a screen reader does. A clean semantic structure, relevant alt text, explicit links — these are the same signals that serve accessibility and search ranking. Making a site accessible almost mechanically makes it more visible.

An accessible site therefore ticks three boxes at once: more users, better SEO, less legal risk (accessibility is becoming a legal obligation in more and more countries).

Zero WCAG violations isn't the same as "genuinely usable"

Automated tools (Lighthouse, axe) catch part of the problems — contrast, missing alt, broken ARIA roles. But a score of 100 doesn't guarantee a human can cope. Some things can only be tested by hand:

• Navigating the whole page with the keyboard only, no mouse.
• Listening to it with a screen reader (VoiceOver, NVDA).
• Checking that nothing relies on color alone to be understood.

It's that last line — the human test — that the amateur skips and the professional never forgets.

My position

I don't charge for "accessibility" as a premium option. It's part of what it means to deliver a proper site, just as much as it must display on mobile. A deliverable that excludes some of its visitors isn't finished — it's incomplete. And this standard, invisible in a thirty-second demo, is precisely what distinguishes durable work from a throwaway site.