Website accessibility is about making sure people with disabilities can find, read and use your website. That includes people who are blind and use screen readers, people with low vision who zoom in, people who cannot use a mouse, people with hearing loss, and people with cognitive conditions or dyslexia who need clear layouts and plain language. It also helps older customers, people on small phones in bright sunlight and anyone in a hurry.
For a small business, accessibility is partly a legal duty, partly good customer service and partly plain good design. This guide explains where the law stands in the UK, what the WCAG guidelines actually ask for, and the fixes that make the biggest difference for the least effort. It is general information, not legal advice.
What the law says for UK businesses
The Equality Act 2010 requires service providers not to discriminate against disabled people and to make reasonable adjustments so they are not put at a substantial disadvantage. The Act does not mention websites by name, but a website through which you sell, take bookings or provide information is part of how you provide your service, and it is widely accepted that the duty applies to it.
Public sector bodies have a separate, more specific set of rules, the Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations 2018, which require them to meet WCAG and publish an accessibility statement. Those do not apply to private businesses. If you sell to consumers in the EU, however, the European Accessibility Act, applied from June 2025, may cover some products and services such as e-commerce, with an exemption for the smallest service businesses. Check with an adviser if that applies to you.
In practice, the question for a UK small business is less “will I be sued?” and more “am I turning customers away?”. A booking form a screen reader cannot use, or text too faint to read, loses real customers every week.
What WCAG is, in one paragraph
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines are published by the W3C, the body that sets web standards. The current version, WCAG 2.2, was published in October 2023. Its success criteria are graded A, AA and AAA. Level AA is the standard most organisations, regulators and courts refer to when they talk about an accessible website. The guidelines are organised under four principles: content must be perceivable, operable, understandable and robust.
The fixes that matter most on a small business website
| Problem | Who it affects | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Pale grey text on white, or text over busy photos | Low vision, older users, anyone outdoors | Use strong contrast; WCAG AA asks for 4.5:1 for normal text |
| Images with no alt text | Screen reader users | Describe meaningful images briefly; mark decorative ones as decorative |
| Headings used for styling, not structure | Screen reader users who jump between headings | One H1 per page, then H2s and H3s in a logical order |
| Form fields without labels | Screen reader and voice control users | Every field has a visible, programmatically linked label |
| Menus or pop-ups that cannot be used with a keyboard | People who cannot use a mouse | Everything reachable and usable with Tab, Enter and Escape, with a visible focus outline |
| Links that say “click here” or “read more” | Screen reader users scanning links | Link text that makes sense on its own: “See our boiler prices” |
| Videos without captions | Deaf and hard of hearing users, people watching on mute | Add accurate captions, not just auto-generated ones |
| Tiny tap targets packed together | People with tremors or limited dexterity, everyone on a phone | Larger buttons with space between them |
| Text that breaks when zoomed | Low vision users | Layouts that reflow at 200% zoom and on narrow screens without sideways scrolling |
| Menus or PDFs as images | Screen reader users, search engines | Put prices, menus and timetables in real text on the page |
Writing alt text that is actually useful
Alt text is the short description of an image read out by screen readers and shown if the image fails to load. Good alt text describes what the image contributes to the page, in a sentence or less. “Newly fitted grey shaker kitchen with oak worktops” is useful. “Kitchen” is thin. “Best kitchen fitter Exeter cheap kitchens” is keyword stuffing and helps nobody.
Not every image needs a description. Purely decorative images, such as background textures, should have empty alt text so screen readers skip them. Logos should say the business name. Images that contain text, such as an offer banner, must repeat that text in the alt attribute, or better still, put the text on the page itself.
Accessibility for different kinds of business
- Restaurants and cafés: publish the menu as text, including allergen information, not as a photo or PDF.
- Salons, clinics and gyms: make sure the booking system can be used with a keyboard and screen reader; test it, because many third-party widgets fail.
- Trades: make the phone number a real, tappable link and avoid putting it only inside an image or logo.
- Shops: product images need alt text, filters and basket buttons must work by keyboard, and error messages at checkout must be clear.
- Professional services: long documents and guides should be web pages with proper headings, not scanned PDFs.
- Venues and holiday lets: describe physical access honestly on the site; it is some of the most searched-for information by disabled customers.
How to check your own website
You do not need to be a developer to find the worst problems. Try these checks:
- Put your mouse away and use only the Tab key to move through your homepage. Can you reach and use every link, menu and button, and can you always see where you are?
- Zoom your browser to 200%. Does the page still work without text overlapping or needing sideways scrolling?
- Run a free automated checker, such as the accessibility audit built into Chrome’s Lighthouse or the WAVE tool. They catch missing alt text, contrast failures and unlabelled fields.
- Turn on your phone’s screen reader (VoiceOver on iPhone, TalkBack on Android) and try to book, buy or send an enquiry.
- Read your key pages aloud. If the sentences are long and full of jargon, simplify them.
Accessibility statements and overlays
Private businesses are not required to publish an accessibility statement, but a short one is a good idea. Say what standard you aim for, any known problems and how people can contact you if something does not work for them. That last part matters most: it gives a customer a route to you rather than a dead end.
Be wary of accessibility overlay plug-ins that promise to make any site compliant with one line of code. They add a toolbar of options, but they cannot fix problems in the underlying page, such as a form with no labels, and many disabled users find them get in the way. Fixing the site itself is the reliable route.
Accessibility checklist
Accessibility is much cheaper to build in than to bolt on. Nerdsharks sites are built and checked towards WCAG 2.2 AA from the first design, covering contrast, headings, labels and keyboard access, because retrofitting an inaccessible site usually means rebuilding parts of it.
- Text contrast meets WCAG AA across the site, including over images.
- Every meaningful image has sensible alt text.
- One H1 per page and a logical heading order.
- Every form field has a visible label and clear error messages.
- The whole site works with a keyboard, with a visible focus outline.
- Link and button text makes sense out of context.
- Videos have accurate captions.
- Pages reflow properly at 200% zoom and on small phones.
- Menus, prices and timetables are real text, not images or PDFs.
- An accessibility contact or statement tells people how to get help.