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Web Design and Development

Website Accessibility Compliance

Measured against WCAG 2.2 level AA, the standard courts reference

Timeline
Three to six weeks for a typical service business site
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Website accessibility compliance means building a site that people with disabilities can actually use. The standard to meet is WCAG 2.2 AA. It covers color contrast, keyboard use, screen reader labels, form instructions, and captions. In California it also cuts your risk of demand letters and Unruh Act claims.

Written by Terry Sr., FounderLast updated
Jump to a section
  1. The problem
  2. What it is
  3. Signs you need this
  4. What is included
  5. Our process
  6. Related services
  7. What Scans Find on Most Home Pages
  8. The Failures We Find Most on Service Sites
  9. Alt Text and Link Text Rules for Your Staff
  10. If a Demand Letter Arrives
  11. PDFs, Vendors, and the Parts People Forget
  12. Questions

The problem

Two things drive this. The first is that roughly one in four adults has some disability, and a site that cannot be used with a keyboard or a screen reader quietly turns away customers, including a large share of the senior market that home care, Medicare, and medical practices depend on. The second is legal. California businesses receive accessibility demand letters routinely, often over the same handful of issues: unlabeled form fields, images with no alternative text, low contrast text, and menus that cannot be reached by keyboard. Many owners respond by installing an overlay widget, which has not prevented lawsuits and sometimes makes screen reader behavior worse.

What it is

Accessibility work brings a site in line with WCAG 2.2 level AA. That is the standard most legal complaints and government guidance point to. In practice it means text contrast of at least 4.5 to 1. Every interactive element has to be reachable and usable by keyboard, with a visible focus outline. Form fields need real labels tied to their inputs. Images that carry information need meaningful alternative text. Headings run in a logical order, videos get captions, and no content relies on color alone to be understood. We run automated tools first to catch the mechanical issues. Then we test by hand with a keyboard and a screen reader, because automation misses roughly half of the real problems.

Signs you need this

  • You received an accessibility demand letter or a law firm inquiry
  • Your customers skew older, as with Medicare, home care, or optometry
  • You cannot reach your own menu or submit your form using only the Tab key
  • You installed an overlay widget and assume the problem is handled
  • Your site has videos with no captions and images with no alternative text

What is included

  • Automated scan of every template using axe DevTools and Lighthouse
  • Manual keyboard navigation test of every page and interactive element
  • Screen reader testing with VoiceOver and NVDA on key conversion paths
  • Color contrast audit with corrected palette values where pairs fail
  • Form label, instruction, and error message remediation
  • Alternative text written for every image that carries meaning
  • Heading structure correction so pages read in a logical order
  • Visible focus indicators and a skip to content link
  • Accessibility statement page listing the standard, status, and a contact route
  • Written remediation report showing each issue, its WCAG reference, and its fix

Our process

  1. Automated Scan

    Days 1 to 4

    We run axe DevTools and Lighthouse across every page template and export the findings. This catches missing alternative text, contrast failures, and unlabeled fields quickly, which is usually 40 to 60 percent of the total issue list.

  2. Manual Testing

    Week 1 to 2

    We navigate the whole site with a keyboard only, then with VoiceOver and NVDA. This is where the real problems surface: menus that trap focus, modals that cannot be closed, and buttons that announce themselves as the word button and nothing else.

  3. Prioritized Remediation

    Week 2 to 5

    Fixes get ordered by user impact and legal exposure. Conversion paths come first: the phone link, the contact form, the navigation. Decorative issues on an interior page come last.

  4. Retest and Document

    Week 5 to 6

    We rerun the automated scan and repeat the manual tests, then produce a report showing each issue, the WCAG success criterion it relates to, and how it was resolved. This document matters if you ever receive a demand letter.

  5. Maintain the Standard

    Quarterly, ongoing

    New content breaks accessibility constantly, usually through images posted without alternative text or a new embedded video without captions. We provide a short checklist for whoever adds content and rescan quarterly.

Realistic timeline: Three to six weeks for a typical service business site. Longer if the site uses a page builder that generates inaccessible markup, since some issues cannot be fixed without rebuilding components.

What Scans Find on Most Home Pages

WebAIM scans a million home pages each year and publishes the results. The same short list of problems dominates every time.

About 95%
Home pages with detected WCAG failures
WebAIM Million, an annual scan of one million home pages
About 4 in 5
Home pages with low contrast text
The most common failure, year after year
More than half
Home pages missing image alt text
Second most common, and usually a content fix
Nearly half
Home pages with unlabeled form fields
The failure most likely to cost you a lead

The Failures We Find Most on Service Sites

Scans return a long list, but a few elements cause most of it. Effort below is per site, not per page, because these live in templates.

Because these sit in templates, one fix usually clears the same issue on every page of the site.
ElementWhat usually failsWho fixes itTypical effort
Contact formFields labeled by placeholder onlyDeveloper2 to 4 hours
Main menuDropdowns that open on hover onlyDeveloper3 to 6 hours
Brand colorsGray text under 4.5 to 1 contrastDesigner1 to 3 hours
Photo galleryNo alt text, arrows skip the Tab keyContent and developerMinutes per image
Video embedsNo captions, sound starts itselfContent ownerCost of captioning
Sticky call barCovers text when a visitor enlarges itDeveloper1 to 2 hours

Because these sit in templates, one fix usually clears the same issue on every page of the site.

Alt Text and Link Text Rules for Your Staff

Two of the most common failures are created by whoever adds content, not by a developer. This is the one page rule sheet we hand to office staff.

Do this

  • Describe the photo and why it is there, like Crew replacing a copper line
  • Leave alt text empty on decorative images so a screen reader skips them
  • Write link text that works alone, like View our repiping prices
  • Name a button by its action, like Request a free estimate
  • Caption every video, including the ones filmed on a phone

Not this

  • Do not use a file name like IMG_4471 as alt text
  • Do not use click here or read more as the whole link
  • Do not put important words inside an image
  • Do not mark a required field with red color alone
  • Do not jump from heading level two to heading level five

If a Demand Letter Arrives

We are not attorneys and none of this is legal advice. Call one first, before you touch the site.

What we can tell you is the technical pattern. Most letters list a few issues pulled from an automated scan: contrast, missing alt text, unlabeled form fields, and menus a keyboard cannot open.

Keep records. Do not quietly delete the pages named in the letter, because a dated copy of the site as it was can matter later.

Then fix the underlying code and document it. A report showing each issue, the WCAG criterion, the date, and the fix is worth far more than a widget that claims to handle everything.

PDFs, Vendors, and the Parts People Forget

Do the PDFs on my site have to be accessible too?

Yes, if they carry information a customer needs, like a price list, a service menu, or an intake form. Scanned PDFs are the worst offenders, because they are pictures of text and a screen reader gets nothing from them. The simplest fix is to publish the same information as a normal web page and keep the PDF as an extra download.

What about a booking or chat widget built by someone else?

You are responsible for everything that appears on your page, even the parts a vendor built. Ask each vendor for their accessibility conformance report before you sign. If their booking tool cannot be used with a keyboard, give people an equal path: a plain form and a phone number right beside it.

Frequently asked questions

Do accessibility overlay widgets work?

Not as a accessibility compliance solution. Overlays sit on top of the page and try to patch problems in the browser, and they have not stopped lawsuits. Many screen reader users report that overlays make sites harder to use. Real accessibility means fixing the underlying code, which is more work and actually holds up.

What standard do I need to meet?

WCAG 2.2 level AA is the practical target. It is what the Department of Justice references, what most demand letters cite, and what state and local government rules now require. Level AAA exists but is stricter than most businesses need and is not what enforcement is based on.

How likely am I to actually get sued in California?

California produces a large share of the country's web accessibility claims, partly because the Unruh Act allows statutory damages per violation. Small local businesses do receive demand letters, most often over unlabeled forms, missing alternative text, and low contrast. We are not attorneys and this is not legal advice, but the pattern is well documented.

Will accessibility work help my SEO?

Some of it overlaps directly. Proper heading structure, descriptive alternative text, meaningful link text, and clean semantic markup all help search engines understand a page, and captions give video content indexable text. Accessibility is not a ranking factor by itself, but doing it well tends to produce a more readable site.

How do I keep the site compliant after the fixes?

Give whoever adds content a short checklist: alternative text on every meaningful image, captions on every video, descriptive link text instead of click here, and no colored text as the only way to signal something. Then rescan quarterly. Most sites drift back out of accessibility compliance within a year through normal content additions.

Sources