website accessibility services

Overview: What It Is and Why It Matters

Everyone Deserves Access

When you open a door to your business, you open it to everyone — including people with disabilities. Your website is no different. It's often the first point of contact a potential customer has with your organization, and it should work for everyone who visits.

Web accessibility means designing and building websites so that people with disabilities can use them effectively. This includes people who are blind or have low vision, those who navigate by keyboard rather than a mouse, people with hearing loss, and individuals with cognitive or motor disabilities.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 1 in 4 adults in the United States has some type of disability. That's a significant portion of your potential audience — and if your website creates barriers for them, they'll simply go elsewhere.

What Are WCAG Standards?

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are the internationally recognized technical standards for web accessibility. Developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), these guidelines define what it means for a website to be accessible. They are organized around four core principles: content must be Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust — often referred to as POUR.

WCAG 2.1 Level AA is the benchmark referenced by the U.S. Department of Justice for ADA compliance with websites. It's the standard courts, regulators, and accessibility professionals use to evaluate whether a website is accessible.

The Legal Landscape

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires that places of public accommodation be accessible to people with disabilities. The Department of Justice has consistently affirmed that websites fall under this requirement for businesses open to the public.

In 2024, the DOJ issued a final rule under Title II of the ADA requiring state and local government websites to conform to WCAG 2.1 Level AA. While Title III guidance for businesses is still evolving, federal courts across the country have routinely ruled in favor of plaintiffs in web accessibility cases.

This isn't about fear of litigation — it's about understanding that accessibility has become an expected standard of practice, much like having a ramp at your front door. Organizations that get ahead of these expectations are better positioned legally, competitively, and reputationally.

Why It Makes Good Business Sense

Beyond legal compliance, an accessible website is simply a better website. Many accessibility improvements also benefit users without disabilities:

  • Clearer navigation helps everyone find what they need faster

  • Better color contrast improves readability for all users, especially on mobile in bright light

  • Properly labeled forms reduce errors and abandoned submissions

  • Clean heading structure improves comprehension and SEO

  • Video captions help users in noisy environments or those watching without sound

Where Most Websites Fall Short

Research consistently shows that the vast majority of websites — over 95% — have detectable accessibility failures. The most common issues include:

  • Images with no alternative text (screen readers have nothing to describe)

  • Form fields without proper labels (users can't tell what information is needed)

  • Insufficient color contrast between text and background

  • Keyboard navigation that doesn't work or loses focus

  • Missing page structure (headings used for style rather than meaning)

  • PDFs and documents that aren't screen reader accessible

  • Videos without captions or audio descriptions

  • Flyer-style images — graphics that contain text as part of the image, which cannot be read by assistive technology

The good news is that most of these issues are fixable. And finding them is exactly what an accessibility audit is designed to do.