Web accessibility best practices, WCAG compliance, and inclusive design. Build websites that work for everyone, including users on assistive technology.
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Accessibility isn't a feature you bolt on at the end. It's the soil your entire site grows in. When a page works for someone using a screen reader, a keyboard, or a switch device, it works better for everyone. Semantic markup, clear focus states, proper heading hierarchy, and sufficient color contrast aren't edge cases. They're the baseline. Getting them right means fewer support tickets, broader reach, and a site that holds up under legal scrutiny.
These posts dig into WCAG 2.1 compliance, ARIA patterns, assistive technology testing, and the real-world impact of inaccessible design. We cover common violations that slip past visual review, the principles behind the guidelines, and practical fixes you can apply today. Whether you're remediating an existing site or building something new, this is where we share what we've learned from scanning thousands of pages with eiSEO.
Written by Brent Passmore, Had A Farm
Performance optimization and accessibility improvement share more common ground than most teams realize. The techniques that make a site faster often make it more accessible, and vice versa. One season, two yields.
Screen reader users often navigate by pulling up a list of all links on a page. If every link says "click here" or "read more," that list is useless. Descriptive link text is a small change with an outsized impact.
Progressive enhancement builds from a baseline that works everywhere, then layers on improvements for capable browsers. It's the root system that keeps your site alive when conditions aren't ideal.
A barn built with cardboard looks like a barn, until the wind blows. Semantic HTML is the difference between elements that look right and elements that are right. Structure matters more than appearance.
Headings aren't just big text. They're the structural skeleton of your page: the rows and furrows that tell both humans and machines where one section ends and another begins.
Imagine walking through a farm where you have to open every gate in sequence before reaching the barn. That's what keyboard users experience without skip links and proper focus management.
Your website has two versions: the one sighted visitors see and the one screen readers announce. If you've never listened to the second version, you don't know what you're actually serving to a significant portion of your audience.
Forms are the gates to your digital property: contact forms, sign-ups, checkout flows. When those gates don't open for everyone, you're turning away visitors who were ready to walk through.
Without landmarks, a screen reader user sees your website as one enormous undifferentiated field. ARIA landmarks and semantic HTML create the fences, gates, and signposts that make navigation possible.
Most alt text is either missing or useless. "Image" tells a screen reader user nothing. "Photo of a team working together in a modern office" tells them everything they don't need. Here's how to write alt text that actually works.
That light gray text on white might look elegant in Figma, but it fails 4.6 million Americans with low vision. Color contrast is a WCAG requirement, not a style choice, and getting it right makes everything better.
A mouse is one way to get around a website. But if your site only works with a mouse, you've locked the gate on everyone who navigates differently. Keyboard accessibility is the tractor that reaches every row.
Web accessibility means building websites and applications that people with disabilities can perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with. This includes users who rely on screen readers, keyboard navigation, voice control, switch devices, and other assistive technologies. Accessible design benefits everyone, including people with temporary impairments, situational limitations, and aging-related changes.
WCAG stands for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, published by the W3C. Most organizations target WCAG 2.1 Level AA, which covers a broad range of accessibility requirements including color contrast, keyboard operability, text alternatives, and predictable navigation. WCAG 2.2, released in 2023, adds criteria for focus appearance, dragging movements, and target size.
Start with automated scanning tools like eiSEO, which uses the axe-core engine to detect WCAG violations across your pages. Automated tools catch roughly 30 to 50 percent of issues. For the rest, test with a keyboard only, listen to your site with a screen reader like NVDA or VoiceOver, and review your page structure for semantic correctness.
In many jurisdictions, yes. The Americans with Disabilities Act, Section 508, the European Accessibility Act, and similar laws in other countries require digital accessibility for public-facing websites. The number of accessibility-related lawsuits has increased steadily, making compliance both a legal obligation and a practical business decision.
The most frequently occurring issues are missing alternative text on images, insufficient color contrast, missing form labels, empty or non-descriptive link text, and broken heading hierarchy. These five issues appear on the majority of websites scanned by eiSEO and are straightforward to fix once identified.