The Parts of Accessibility You Can Fix This Week

Accessibility done properly is ongoing work, but the first pass does not have to be a project. A few well-known fixes remove the barriers that stop people using the site at all, and each is an afternoon at most.

Run the automated check first

An automated accessibility check, built into most browsers now, will hand you a prioritised list in a couple of minutes: elements with no accessible name, text that fails contrast, images with no alt text, form fields with no label. It catches maybe a third of issues, but they are the easy third and a good place to start.

Give every control a name

Buttons that are just an icon, links that wrap an image, inputs with a placeholder but no label. To someone using a screen reader these are “button”, “button”, “button”. Add a visible label where you can, an aria-label where you cannot, and make sure the name matches what the control does.

Fix the contrast

Grey text on a slightly lighter grey is a common design choice and a common failure. The tool will tell you which combinations fall short. Darkening the text or the background enough to pass is usually a one-line change and it helps everyone, not only people with low vision.

Make it work from the keyboard

Tab through the whole page. Can you reach every link, button and field? Can you see where the focus is at each step? Can you operate the menu, the modal, the date picker without a mouse? The frequent failures are a custom dropdown that traps focus, a modal that does not move focus into itself or back out on close, and a focus outline that someone removed because it looked untidy. Put the outline back.

Use real headings and landmarks

One h1 per page, headings that nest properly, and the page wrapped in header, nav, main and footer. Screen reader users navigate by these. A page that is all div is a wall with no doors.

Alt text that means something

Decorative images get an empty alt so they are skipped. Images that carry information get a short description of that information, not the file name. If a chart matters, the alt text or nearby text should say what it shows.

Then keep going

This first pass clears the outright blockers. The deeper work, testing real flows with a screen reader, getting complex widgets right, is worth doing next. But the afternoon fixes are the ones that move the site from unusable to usable for a real group of people.

Common questions

Do we need an audit before we start?

An automated check gets you a useful list in minutes. A full manual audit is worth doing later, but do not let it block the obvious fixes.

How much can automated tools catch?

Roughly a third to a half of common issues: missing labels, poor contrast, missing alt text. The rest needs a person with a keyboard and a screen reader.

Is keyboard support really that important?

Yes. It is used by people with motor impairments, people using screen readers, and plenty of power users. If the site cannot be operated without a mouse, a real group of people cannot use it.