Web Accessibility (WCAG)
Short definition
Web accessibility means design and coding rules that let a site be used by people with visual, hearing or motor impairments.
It is delivered through concrete practices: sufficient colour contrast, full keyboard navigation, text labels that screen readers can understand, and captioned video. WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) turns these practices into an international standard.
You meet it in form fields, button labels and image alt text on every page; a button should be understandable by its text, not by colour alone.
It is often assumed to matter only for disabled users, but anyone reading a screen in bright sunlight or navigating by keyboard rather than mouse benefits too. Since June 2025, the European Accessibility Act has made this a legal requirement in certain sectors across the EU.
In practice, the simplest check is to navigate the page using only the Tab key, without touching the mouse, and see whether focus moves in a sensible order; a browser's built-in accessibility inspector or an automated contrast checker also quickly shows whether text meets the AA level's 4.5:1 contrast ratio. Automated tools only catch part of the problems though, so the keyboard test is still necessary.
Why it matters
An inaccessible site loses a share of potential customers at the first step and creates legal exposure in some markets. Meeting WCAG both widens your audience and closes that risk.
Illustrative example
A workwear manufacturer's order form only marked required fields by colour; adding text labels made it usable for customers on screen readers too.
