Accessibility helps every visitor
Clear headings, readable text, strong contrast and buttons large enough to tap help everyone, including someone squinting at a phone in bright sunshine. Most accessibility improvements are also usability improvements. You are making the site easier to use rather than building a special version for a minority.
Contrast and text size come first
Pale grey text on a white background looks stylish in a design mock-up and is hard to read in real life. Text needs enough contrast with its background, and visitors should be able to enlarge it without the layout breaking. These two checks catch a large share of real-world problems.
Images need descriptions
Screen readers cannot see a photo, so they read out its alternative text instead. A photo of your team should say so; a decorative background pattern should be marked as decorative so the reader skips it. Missing or meaningless descriptions such as IMG_4021 leave blind visitors guessing.
Everything should work with a keyboard
Some visitors cannot use a mouse and move through a page with the Tab key instead. Menus, forms and buttons should all be reachable that way, with a visible outline showing where the focus is. Try it on your own site: if you get stuck or lose track of where you are, other people will too.
Forms are where enquiries are won or lost
A contact form with unlabelled fields, placeholder text that disappears as you type, or error messages shown only in red can stop someone sending an enquiry at all. Each field should have a proper label, and errors should explain what went wrong in words.
There is a recognised standard
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, known as WCAG, set out what an accessible site looks like, and the Equality Act 2010 expects service providers to make reasonable adjustments for disabled people in advance. A small business site does not need an expensive audit to make a good start. Fixing contrast, alt text, keyboard access and form labels covers the most common barriers.
What to do next
Spend ten minutes moving through your website using only the Tab and Enter keys, then check your contact form the same way. Note anywhere you got stuck, could not see where you were, or could not tell what a field was for.
Symnetrix builds websites with accessibility considered from the start and can review an existing site for the barriers that most often stop visitors getting in touch. Learn more about web design in Hastings and East Sussex, or contact Symnetrix to discuss your setup.