What is Accessibility?

Who it actually affects

Around one in five people has a disability affecting how they use the web, and the definition is broader than most assume: permanent conditions, temporary ones such as a broken arm, and situational ones such as bright sunlight or holding a child.

The overlap with everything else

• Real form labels help screen readers and reduce form errors for everyone
• Keyboard operability helps power users as much as it helps assistive technology
• Good contrast helps anyone outdoors on a phone
• Semantic headings help both screen readers and search engines understand structure

Where automated testing stops

Automated tools catch roughly a third of issues. They cannot tell whether alt text is meaningful, whether focus order makes sense, or whether an interaction is comprehensible. A keyboard pass and a screen reader pass find different problems, and both are quick.

Where this is covered in depth

A definition can only go so far. The 35 types of SEO, explained without the padding covers this properly — 6 minutes, free, no email required.

Who wrote this

Anas Bin Masud builds e-commerce sites and does technical SEO for businesses in the UK, Canada and Pakistan. These definitions come from client work rather than from a content brief — where an entry describes a mistake, it is usually one found on a real site. More about how I work.