Website Accessibility: Why It Matters and Where to Start

Website accessibility means designing and building your site so that people can use it regardless of disability, age, device or circumstance — whether they navigate by keyboard, use a screen reader, zoom text, or struggle to read low-contrast text in bright sunlight. It matters because it widens who can become your customer, overlaps heavily with good usability and SEO, and is increasingly expected by organisations and procurement teams. You can start with a handful of simple checks today.

Who accessibility helps

It is easy to think of accessibility as serving a small group. In practice it supports:

• People with permanent disabilities, including visual, hearing, motor and cognitive impairments — referred to in the UAE as people of determination
• Older visitors, whose eyesight, hearing or fine motor control may have changed
• People with temporary limitations, such as a broken arm or an eye infection
• Situational limitations: a phone used one-handed, a video watched without sound on public transport, a screen viewed outdoors in strong light

When you design for these needs, the site usually becomes clearer and easier for everyone.

WCAG in brief

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), published by the W3C, are the most widely used international reference for web accessibility. The current version, WCAG 2.2, is organised around four principles. Content must be:

Principle	What it means	Examples
Perceivable	People can see or hear the content in some form	Text alternatives for images, captions for video, sufficient colour contrast
Operable	People can use every control	Full keyboard access, enough time to complete tasks, no content that flashes dangerously
Understandable	Content and behaviour are predictable	Clear labels, plain language, helpful error messages
Robust	Content works with assistive technologies	Valid, well-structured code that screen readers can interpret

Each guideline has success criteria at three levels: A (the minimum), AA and AAA. Many organisations and public-sector policies around the world use Level AA as their target. Whether any specific standard applies to your business depends on your sector, your customers and where you operate, so take advice if you need certainty — particularly if you work with government entities or tender for contracts that specify accessibility requirements.

Six checks you can run yourself

You do not need specialist software to find the most common problems.

1. Unplug the mouse

Use only the Tab, Shift+Tab, Enter and Space keys to move through your homepage and submit your contact form. Can you reach every link and button? Can you always see where you are? Do menus open without a mouse?

2. Check images

Every meaningful image needs alternative text that describes its purpose: "Team inspecting a villa roof in Al Barsha", not "IMG_2045" or "image". Purely decorative images should have empty alt text so screen readers skip them.

3. Test colour contrast

WCAG AA asks for a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 for normal body text and 3:1 for large text. Free contrast checkers, including the one in Chrome DevTools, will tell you whether your colours pass. Light grey text on white and white text on pale brand colours are frequent failures.

4. Look at the headings

Headings should form a logical outline: one main heading, then sections and subsections in order. Screen reader users often navigate by headings, and search engines also use them to understand page structure.

5. Zoom to 200 per cent

Zoom your browser to 200 per cent. Text should remain readable without overlapping, and you should not need to scroll sideways to read paragraphs.

6. Check forms and media

Every form field needs a visible label, not just placeholder text that disappears when you type. Error messages should say what went wrong and how to fix it. Videos with speech need captions, which also help the many people who watch with the sound off.

Bilingual and Arabic considerations

For Arabic and English sites, set the correct lang attribute on each page (and on any passage in the other language) so screen readers use the right pronunciation, and set dir="rtl" on Arabic pages. Make sure focus order, icons and form layouts follow the reading direction, and check that Arabic fonts remain legible at the sizes you use.

A word on accessibility overlays

Some tools promise to make a site accessible by adding a single script. They can offer user preferences such as larger text, but they cannot fix missing labels, poor structure or inaccessible forms in the underlying code. Treat them as no substitute for fixing the site itself.

Making it part of how you work

• Include accessibility in every design and development brief, naming WCAG 2.2 Level AA as the target.
• Add alt text, heading structure and captions to your content publishing checklist.
• Test new templates with a keyboard and a screen reader before launch.
• Fix issues in order of impact: anything that blocks a task, such as an unusable form, comes first.

Accessibility work supports many of the same goals as UX optimisation and mobile-first design, and clear, plain writing — covered in our website copywriting guide — helps people with cognitive impairments as much as anyone.

Key takeaways

• Accessibility helps people with disabilities, older users and anyone in a difficult situation.
• WCAG 2.2 is the main reference; Level AA is a common target.
• Keyboard access, alt text, contrast, headings, zoom and form labels are the best places to start.
• Set language and direction correctly on Arabic pages.
• Build accessibility into briefs and publishing rather than bolting it on.

If you are planning a new or rebuilt website with accessibility designed in from the start, talk to our sister company WOT Innovation, which handles website design and development.