Website accessibility checker.

Why accessibility matters for a business website

Around one in six people lives with some form of disability, and many more use the web with a temporary injury, an old phone, bright sunlight or a slow connection. An accessible site works for all of them. It's also increasingly a legal expectation: the ADA in the US, the Equality Act in the UK and the European Accessibility Act all apply to many business websites.

There's a search benefit too. Alt text, clear headings, descriptive links and proper labels are exactly the signals search engines and AI tools use to understand a page.

What automated checks can and can't find

Automated tools catch roughly a third of accessibility problems: the ones visible in the code, like a missing label or alt attribute. They can't judge whether alt text is actually useful, whether colour contrast works over an image, whether a menu can be used by keyboard, or whether the page makes sense read aloud. A clean result here is a good start, not a certificate of compliance.

The most common problems on small business sites

• Social media and logo links with only an icon and no text, which screen readers announce as just "link".
• Contact forms that use placeholder text instead of labels.
• Menu and search buttons with no accessible name.
• Images with no alt text, or alt text that's just the file name.
• Zoom disabled in the viewport tag, which stops people enlarging text on phones.
• Headings chosen for their size rather than their level, so the outline jumps around.

Quick manual tests to do next

Three tests take ten minutes and catch most of what automation misses. If they turn up problems, our website redesign and UI/UX design work builds accessibility in, rather than patching it afterwards.

• Unplug your mouse and use Tab, Shift+Tab and Enter. Can you reach and use every link, button and form field? Can you always see where you are?
• Zoom the browser to 200%. Does anything overlap or disappear?
• Turn on your phone's screen reader (VoiceOver or TalkBack) and listen to your home page for one minute.