This guide is general information, not legal advice. If you have received a demand letter or need a compliance opinion, speak to a lawyer.
Why accessibility matters
People use the web in many ways: with a screen reader, with only a keyboard, with the text zoomed to 200%, with colour blindness, or with a tremor that makes small buttons hard to hit. An accessible site works for all of them.
That is good for business in three ways:
- More customers. A large share of adults live with some form of disability, and many more have temporary or age-related needs. A site they cannot use sends them to a competitor.
- Better search. Clear headings, real text instead of text in images, and descriptive link and image text help search engines understand a page as much as they help people.
- Lower legal risk. In the US, businesses are regularly sued over inaccessible websites.
WCAG: the standard everyone uses
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are the international standard for accessible websites, published by the W3C. The current version is WCAG 2.2. Each guideline has three levels, A, AA and AAA, and level AA is the target almost every law, policy and court points to.
WCAG is organised around four principles. A site should be:
- Perceivable: text alternatives for images, captions for video, enough colour contrast.
- Operable: everything works with a keyboard, nothing flashes dangerously, people have time to read.
- Understandable: clear language, predictable navigation, helpful form errors.
- Robust: clean code that works with assistive technology like screen readers.
How the ADA applies to websites
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires businesses open to the public not to discriminate against people with disabilities. The law was written before websites existed, but the US Department of Justice has said that it applies to the websites of businesses open to the public, and courts have heard many website accessibility cases.
For private businesses, the ADA does not name a single technical standard. In practice, WCAG 2.1 or 2.2 at level AA is the benchmark that settlements and guidance use. For state and local governments, a 2024 Justice Department rule now sets WCAG 2.1 AA as the requirement.
If you sell into Europe, the European Accessibility Act has applied since June 2025 to many online shops and services offered to EU customers, also with WCAG as its reference.
What a toolbar can and cannot do
An accessibility toolbar is a button on the page that opens a panel of adjustments. Our free plugin, EZ Accessibility, is one.
A good toolbar helps visitors read your site the way they need to:
- make text larger or increase letter spacing
- switch to high contrast or a more readable font
- highlight links so they are easy to spot
- pause animations that distract or cause discomfort
A toolbar does not make a site compliant on its own. It cannot add missing image descriptions, fix a form that does not work with a keyboard, or caption a video. Be wary of any product that promises full ADA compliance from one line of code. Accessibility comes from how the site is built; a toolbar is a helpful extra on top.
The most common problems, and the fixes
Most accessibility issues on business websites come from the same short list:
- Missing alternative text. Every meaningful image needs a short description. Decorative images should be marked as decorative.
- Low colour contrast. Light grey text on white is hard to read. Body text needs a contrast ratio of at least 4.5 to 1.
- No keyboard access. Menus, sliders and pop-ups must work with the Tab and Enter keys, with a visible focus outline.
- Unlabelled forms. Every field needs a visible label, and errors should say what went wrong.
- Vague links. “Click here” tells a screen reader user nothing. “See our pricing” does.
- Headings used for looks. Headings should follow a real outline, one main heading, then sections in order.
- Videos without captions. Captions help deaf visitors and anyone watching with the sound off.
Where to start
- Run a free automated check. Tools such as WAVE or Lighthouse in Chrome find many technical issues in minutes.
- Try your site with only a keyboard. If you cannot reach and use everything with Tab, Enter and the arrow keys, fix that first.
- Fix your templates, not just pages. Most problems live in the theme, so fixing one template fixes every page that uses it.
- Add a toolbar for visitor comfort, once the basics are right.
- Build accessibility into every change from now on, so it never drifts.
How we build accessible sites
We build to WCAG 2.2 AA from the first template: real headings, labelled forms, keyboard support, readable contrast and descriptive text. For Qudra’s website that meant three languages, two reading directions and a custom accessibility tool, which later became EZ Accessibility. If your current site needs an accessibility review or rebuild, we can help.