Web Accessibility: What WCAG 2.2 and the EAA Mean for You

WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) 2.2 is a technical standard published by the W3C, organised around four principles: a web page should be perceivable, operable, understandable and robust.

Those principles turn into concrete rules: an image needs alternative text, a form must be fillable by keyboard and not just a mouse, colour cannot carry information on its own (red and green alone should not signal an error, for instance), and video needs captions.

The standard splits into conformance levels (A, AA, AAA); most legal frameworks and corporate expectations reference level AA.

Fully meeting WCAG does not have to mean satisfying every single criterion to the letter; the actual goal is that the site can genuinely be used by someone with a disability. The criteria exist as a route towards that goal, not as an end in themselves.

The European Accessibility Act is a directive requiring certain products and services across EU member states, including banking, e-commerce, e-books and some transport services, to meet accessibility criteria; it has been in force since June 2025.

A business selling directly to consumers can fall within its scope if it sells to a customer based in the EU. Whether there is a hard line here genuinely depends on the business's own situation; scale, product category and target market all play a part, so the exact scope is worth confirming with a legal adviser rather than assuming either way.

The UK, having left the EU, is not directly bound by the European Accessibility Act; but a UK-based business selling to EU consumers can still be affected by it. The UK's own framework, the Equality Act 2010 and the accessibility regulations for public sector bodies, remains the applicable standard domestically.

This uncertainty should not leave a business sitting on its hands; meeting WCAG improves the visitor experience even before any legal obligation is fully settled.

An accessible site becomes more usable not only for someone with a visual impairment, but for anyone navigating with a temporary limitation, a broken arm, a screen that is hard to read in sunlight, or a slow connection. A site that works by keyboard alone benefits a screen reader user just as much as a visitor who cannot use a mouse for the moment.

Take a spa chain's booking form: if it depends on a calendar widget that only responds to a mouse, a visitor using a keyboard or a screen reader cannot book at all; that is a customer lost outright.

Aiming for full conformance from a standing start is not realistic; starting with the most common problems is. Adding alternative text to images, checking colour contrast, testing that forms work by keyboard, and adding captions where video exists are the first steps.

Automated scanning tools catch some issues but not all of them; an actual keyboard-only walkthrough, and ideally a test with a screen reader, surfaces problems the automated tools miss.

A small business does not always need to bring in an outside accessibility consultant; the first steps above can largely be completed by the existing team in a single day's work.

• Meaningful alternative text is added to images
• Colour contrast is checked against WCAG thresholds
• Forms and menus are tested using the keyboard alone
• Captions are added to video content
• Page headings (H1, H2) follow a sensible hierarchy

No. Accessibility is not a box ticked once and forgotten; it is a question worth asking again every time a new page or feature gets added. When a new form goes up, 'can this be filled in by keyboard?' should become as natural a step as approving the design.

If a business fixes its site against WCAG criteria once and then skips that same check when adding a new campaign page later, that one page puts the whole site back at risk. Accessibility works better as a standing part of the publishing process than as a one-off audit.

If a spa chain's newly opened branch gets a campaign page published without the same alt-text and keyboard testing the rest of the site went through, that single page puts both the user experience and the legal position at risk, even if everything else is compliant.

The simplest way to build this into the process is a short checklist before any new page goes live; whether alt text exists, whether it works by keyboard, whether colour contrast is adequate can all be answered in five minutes.