When we create websites, we usually picture a typical user: someone with good eyesight, using a mouse and keyboard on a modern computer or smartphone. But reality is much more diverse. Millions of people around the world have different perceptual needs: visual or hearing impairments, motor impairments, and cognitive differences. For them, the internet can be either a powerful tool that opens up new opportunities or a source of constant frustration, depending on how developers approach building their websites.
Web accessibility is the practice of creating web content that is available to the widest possible audience, including people with disabilities. And this is not just a matter of ethics or social responsibility, although these aspects are certainly important. In 2026, accessibility has become a legal requirement in many countries, a factor that affects SEO, and a mark of professionalism in web development.
Who uses assistive technologies
Before getting into the technical details, it is important to understand who we are optimizing for. Users with specific needs interact with the web in many different ways, and understanding these ways helps us make the right decisions during development.
People with visual impairments may use screen readers—special software that reads page content aloud. Popular screen readers include JAWS, NVDA for Windows, and VoiceOver, built into macOS and iOS. These programs read the page text in sequence and let users navigate by headings, links, forms, and other elements. For users with low vision, important features include the ability to enlarge text, high contrast between text and background, and a clearly visible focus indicator when navigating with a keyboard.
People with hearing impairments cannot access audio content without a visual alternative. Videos without captions, podcasts without transcripts, and audio notifications without visual equivalents all make content inaccessible to deaf and hard-of-hearing users.
People with motor impairments may have difficulty using a mouse or touchscreen. They may use only a keyboard, specialized input devices, eye-tracking systems, or voice control. Small buttons that require precise clicking, elements that cannot be accessed by keyboard, and short form timeouts all create barriers for these users.
People with cognitive differences—including difficulties with attention, memory, or learning—need a simple and clear content structure, no distracting elements, and the ability to control animation and media autoplay.
It is important to understand that specific needs are not always permanent. Temporary impairments—a broken arm, an eye infection, or working in a noisy environment—can temporarily make anyone a user of assistive technologies. And age-related changes in vision, hearing, and motor function affect almost everyone.
WCAG standards and conformance levels
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, developed by the W3C consortium, are the international standard for web accessibility. The current version, WCAG 2.2, published in 2023, contains recommendations organized around four principles: perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust.
Each recommendation has one of three conformance levels. Level A is the minimum baseline for accessibility. Failing to meet criteria at this level creates serious barriers that make content inaccessible to some users. Level AA is the intermediate level, considered sufficient for most practical purposes and required by law in many countries. Level AAA is the highest level of accessibility. It is not attainable for all types of content, but it is worth striving for wherever possible.
For most commercial websites, aiming for Level AA conformance is reasonable. This makes a site accessible to a broad audience without excessively limiting its design and functionality.
Semantic markup as the foundation of accessibility
The foundation of an accessible website is correct semantic HTML markup. When developers use HTML elements for their intended purposes—headings for headings, lists for lists, and buttons for interactive actions—assistive technologies can correctly interpret the page structure and provide users with effective navigation tools.
Headings create a hierarchical document structure. Screen readers let users move from heading to heading, quickly scanning the page content. But this only works if headings are marked up with the appropriate h1 through h6 tags, rather than simply styled to look large and bold with CSS. The hierarchy should be logical: an h1 should be followed by an h2; an h2 can be followed by an h3 or another h2, but not an h5.
Navigation areas, the main content, sidebars, and the footer should be marked up using the semantic elements nav, main, aside, and footer. This lets users of assistive technologies quickly move to the relevant part of a page, skipping repeated navigation elements.
Links and buttons are often confused or used interchangeably, but there is a fundamental difference between them from an accessibility perspective. A link leads to another page or a section of the current page—it changes the URL in the address bar. A button performs an action on the current page: it submits a form, opens a modal, or changes a state. Using the correct element helps users of assistive technologies understand what behavior to expect.
Keyboard navigation
Not all users can or want to use a mouse. Keyboard navigation is a critical accessibility feature, and every interactive element on a page should be accessible and operable with a keyboard.
Standard navigation uses the Tab key to move to the next focusable element and Shift+Tab to move back. Enter activates links and buttons; Space can activate buttons and toggle checkboxes. Established patterns using the arrow keys and other keys exist for complex widgets such as menus, tabs, and sliders.
The focus order should be logical and match the visual order of elements on the page. When developers manipulate visual order with CSS flexbox, grid, or positioning, they should make sure that this does not confuse users navigating with Tab.
Focus should be visually distinguishable. Browsers display an outline around the focused element by default, but designers often remove it for aesthetic reasons. This is a serious accessibility mistake. If the default outline does not fit the design, it should be replaced with an alternative visual indicator—such as a background color change, shadow, or underline—but not removed entirely.
Focus traps—situations where focus enters an element and cannot leave—are a serious accessibility problem. The exception is a modal, where a focus trap is intentional: while the modal is open, focus should remain inside it and return to the element that opened it when the modal closes.
Images and alternative text
Every image on a page should have a text alternative that describes its content or purpose. This alternative is provided through the alt attribute and read by screen readers in place of the image.
Writing good alternative text is a skill that takes practice. The text should convey the same information that a sighted user gets from the image. For a product photo, this might be a description of the product and its key features. For an infographic, it might be a textual explanation of the data presented. For a decorative image that does not carry meaning, use an empty alt attribute to signal to the screen reader that the image can be skipped.
Complex images—charts, diagrams, and schematics—may require a longer description that will not fit in the alt attribute. In these cases, put a brief description in alt and provide the full description in the page text next to the image or through a link to a separate page with the description.
Text in images creates accessibility problems. Screen readers cannot read text that is part of an image. Where possible, use actual text layered over an image with CSS rather than text graphically embedded in the image.
Forms and interactive elements
Forms are one of the main ways users interact with a website, and accessibility errors in forms are especially critical. Every form field should have an associated label explaining its purpose. Placing a label visually next to a field is not enough—the association must be established programmatically using a label element and a for attribute, or by placing the field inside the label element.
Required fields should be indicated not only visually but also programmatically using the required or aria-required attribute. The expected data format—for example, a date format or password requirements—should be described in text that is accessible to screen readers.
Error messages should be clear, identify the specific field with the error, and explain how to fix it. A screen reader user should be informed about the error even if it is displayed visually next to the field. Using the aria-invalid and aria-describedby attributes helps associate the field with the error message.
Form timeouts are a particular problem for users who need more time to complete a form. If a session expires and the data is lost, this creates a serious barrier. Warn users when their session is about to expire and provide an option to extend it.
Color and contrast
Information should not be conveyed through color alone. If an error is indicated by a red field and success by a green one, users with color vision deficiencies will not be able to distinguish these states. Add other indicators, such as icons, text labels, or changes to borders.
The contrast between text and its background should be sufficient for comfortable reading. WCAG specifies minimum contrast ratios: 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text at Level AA. Numerous online tools can be used to check the contrast of a color combination.
Interface elements—such as input field borders and button icons—should also have sufficient contrast with the background. This requirement was introduced in WCAG 2.1 and is often overlooked.
Multimedia content
Videos should have captions for deaf and hard-of-hearing users. Automatically generated captions from YouTube or other platforms are better than nothing, but their quality often leaves much to be desired, especially for technical content with specialized terminology. Professional, human-created captions provide a better user experience.
Audio description—a separate audio track describing the visual content of a video—is necessary for blind users when visual information is essential to understanding the content. For many types of video, a well-written script that describes visual elements in the main narration is sufficient.
Autoplaying media is undesirable from an accessibility perspective. Unexpected sound can interfere with a screen reader, and moving video can distract users with cognitive differences. If autoplay is necessary, provide clear controls for stopping playback.
Accessibility and SEO
There is significant overlap between web accessibility and search engine optimization. Search engine crawlers, like screen readers, do not see a page’s visual presentation—they work with its markup and text. Many accessibility practices also improve SEO.
The semantic structure of headings helps search engines understand the content hierarchy. Image alt text allows their content to be indexed. Video and podcast transcripts make multimedia content accessible for indexing. A logical link structure with clear anchor text improves internal linking.
Google explicitly states that website usability is a ranking factor. A site that is inaccessible to some users is, by definition, less usable than an accessible alternative.
Accessibility testing
Automated tools can identify many accessibility issues: missing alt text, low contrast, unlabeled form fields, and heading hierarchy problems. Browser extensions such as axe DevTools or WAVE let you check a page in seconds.
However, automated tests find only some issues—estimates vary from 20 to 40 percent. The quality of alt text, the logic of the focus order, and the clarity of instructions all require human judgment.
Testing with real users of assistive technologies provides the most valuable feedback. If that is not possible, developers should learn the basic skills of using a screen reader and keyboard navigation themselves. Try navigating your site without a mouse—this often reveals unexpected issues.
Conclusion
Web accessibility is not a feature that can be added at the end of development. It is an approach to building web products that should be considered at every stage: when designing, writing markup, creating content, and testing.
In 2026, ignoring accessibility is not just a missed opportunity, but also a potential legal and reputational risk. Conversely, investments in accessibility pay off by expanding your audience, improving SEO, and raising the overall quality of your product.
Start by auditing the current state: check your site with automated tools, test keyboard navigation, and try using a screen reader. Use reChecker to check technical aspects that affect accessibility: markup validity, the presence of meta tags, and loading speed. An accessible web is a better web for everyone.