Web accessibility is one of those topics that most small businesses know they should care about but rarely prioritise. The perception is that it is a compliance issue — something for large public sector organisations — rather than something that materially affects a local business bottom line.
This perception is wrong. One in five people in the UK lives with a disability of some kind. An inaccessible website is excluding 20% of your potential market before a word has been read. That is a commercial problem, not just an ethical one.
20%
UK Population
Of people in the UK have a disability that affects how they use the web
274bn
Purple Pound
Annual spending power in pounds of UK consumers with disabilities
71%
Leave Inaccessible Sites
Of disabled users leave websites immediately if they find them difficult to use
91%
Not Compliant
Of UK business websites fail basic web accessibility standards
The Most Common Accessibility Failures and How to Fix Them
Insufficient Colour Contrast
Text must have sufficient contrast against its background to be readable by users with visual impairments. Many visually attractive websites fail this basic standard.
Images Without Alt Text
Screen readers used by blind and visually impaired users read alt text to describe images. Every meaningful image on your website needs descriptive alt text.
Forms That Cannot Be Completed by Keyboard
Many users with motor impairments navigate entirely by keyboard. If your forms, menus, or interactive elements cannot be accessed without a mouse, you are excluding a significant portion of potential users.
Videos Without Captions
Video content without captions excludes deaf and hard-of-hearing users entirely. Captions also improve SEO and engagement for all users — including the large proportion who watch video content without sound.
“An accessible website is not just the right thing to do — it is a competitive advantage over the 91% of businesses that have not done it yet.”
— Sophie Whitfield, Lancashire Digital Design
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