Website accessibility, in plain English: WCAG, ADA, and what to fix first

Website accessibility means people can use your site regardless of how they see, hear, move, or think. That includes screen reader users, people who navigate by keyboard, people with low vision or color blindness, and anyone reading on a cracked phone in bright sun.

WCAG and the ADA, briefly

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are the international technical standard; version 2.2 is current, and level AA is the usual target. In the United States, the Americans with Disabilities Act is widely applied to websites, and demand letters citing it are common. We are not lawyers, but the practical answer is the same: build to WCAG 2.2 AA.

Why overlay widgets are not the answer

Accessibility overlays promise one-line compliance. They do not fix the underlying code, they can interfere with the assistive technology people already use, and they have not protected sites from complaints. Fix the site itself.

What to fix first

Color contrast on text and buttons. Real, descriptive alt text on meaningful images. A logical heading order. Every interactive element reachable and visible by keyboard. Form fields with actual labels and clear error messages. Links that make sense out of context, not "click here". Captions on video.

The bonus nobody mentions

Nearly every accessibility fix is also an SEO and AI-search fix. Clear headings, descriptive links, and text alternatives are exactly what crawlers and language models use to understand a page.

How we handle it

Accessibility is built into every Beal Street Media project from the first wireframe and checked with automated tools plus manual keyboard and screen reader testing before launch.