Accessibility

Definition

Accessibility (commonly abbreviated a11y) is the practice of designing and building products that people with disabilities — visual, motor, hearing, cognitive — can use with effectiveness and equivalent ease to those without disabilities.

Accessibility is a baseline, not a feature. About 1 in 6 people globally lives with some form of disability — temporary, situational, or permanent. Building inaccessible products excludes that audience and increasingly invites legal exposure (ADA in the US, EAA in Europe).

The core practice is conformance to WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines), currently version 2.2. WCAG defines three conformance levels: A (essential), AA (typical legal target), and AAA (highest). AA conformance covers the bulk of real-world needs: sufficient contrast, keyboard navigation, screen-reader support, and semantic structure. Designing for AA from the start costs little; retrofitting AA onto an inaccessible product costs 5–10×.

Origin

Modern web accessibility traces to Tim Berners-Lee's original vision ("The power of the Web is in its universality") and the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative founded in 1997. WCAG 1.0 shipped in 1999; the current WCAG 2.2 in 2023.

How it works

Design semantic HTML structure — headings in order, landmarks, lists where appropriate.
Ensure colour contrast meets WCAG AA — 4.5:1 for body text, 3:1 for large text and UI elements.
Make every interactive element keyboard-reachable and focusable, with visible focus indicators.
Add accessible names to controls (aria-label or visible label) and alt text to meaningful images.
Test with screen readers (NVDA, JAWS, VoiceOver) and keyboard-only navigation.
Run automated audits (Lighthouse, Axe, WAVE) — they catch ~30% of issues; manual testing catches the rest.

When to use it

Use when

Always. Accessibility is a baseline for every public-facing product.
Especially critical: government, healthcare, education, banking, and any product with regulatory exposure.
When designing for older audiences — vision and motor needs scale with age.

Skip when

There is no "when not". The right question is "how thorough?" — minimum WCAG AA, but resource-constrained teams may stage the work.

Key metrics

Lighthouse Accessibility score (0–100).
Number of WCAG 2.2 AA failures detected by automated tooling.
Manual audit pass rate (per Axe, WAVE, or AccessLint).
Real-user feedback from people who use assistive technology.

Examples

Accessibility audits found 60% of our buttons failed contrast — and improving contrast lifted overall conversion.
Accessibility is not a checklist — it's a baseline.
The site passed WCAG 2.2 AA conformance before launch.

In practice at Makreate

Makreate ships products to WCAG 2.1/2.2 AA by default. It's the right thing to do, expands your addressable market, and reduces legal exposure. On a recent retail site, we redesigned the colour palette to meet 4.5:1 contrast everywhere — and the contrast improvements lifted CTA conversion on the homepage by 11% (everyone benefits from readable buttons, not just users with low vision).

UX Design →

Common mistakes

Treating accessibility as a final-stage audit. Retrofit costs 10× design-time cost.
Relying solely on automated audits. They catch ~30% of issues — the rest need manual review.
Adding ARIA where semantic HTML would have done the job. "No ARIA is better than bad ARIA."
Designing for screen readers only and forgetting keyboard users, low-vision users, and cognitive disabilities.
Treating accessibility as charity. It's a baseline, like security — you don't ship insecure products either.

Frequently asked

What is WCAG conformance level should I target?

AA is the standard target — referenced in most regulations and legal guidance. AAA is rarely required and not always achievable on every page.

Is accessibility legally required?

Increasingly, yes. ADA (US), EAA (Europe), AODA (Ontario), and EN 301 549 (EU public sector) all carry accessibility obligations. Lawsuits over inaccessible commercial sites are common.

Does accessibility hurt design?

No. Constraints sharpen design. Contrast, focus order, and clear hierarchy improve outcomes for every user — not just those with disabilities.