Website accessibility for mid-size companies: what to do and why

A quote form nobody can finish

A project manager tabs through your quote form because her wrist is in a brace. The cursor jumps from the name field to the footer. The "Service needed" dropdown never gets focus. She gives up and calls a competitor.

Nobody on your team will hear about it. There is no error log for a person who couldn't use the site.

That is the practical case for accessibility. People use your site with keyboards, screen readers, zoomed text, voice control and tired eyes on a bright job site. A site that works for them tends to work better for everyone.

WCAG in plain words

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, WCAG, are published by the W3C, the body that maintains web standards. WCAG 2.2 became a W3C Recommendation in October 2023. The W3C encourages using the latest version, and says content that meets 2.2 also meets 2.1 and 2.0.

The guidelines are organized into testable success criteria, each at one of three levels:

• Level A is the floor. Without it, some people can't use the page at all.
• Level AA adds the criteria most organizations, laws and contracts point to. When someone says "WCAG compliant," they usually mean AA.
• Level AAA is stricter still. It is a good goal for some pages, but rarely required for a whole site.

Version 2.2 added nine criteria. The ones at A and AA include keeping the keyboard focus from being hidden behind sticky banners, making click targets large enough or spaced apart, offering an alternative to dragging, not asking people to re-enter information they already gave, and not making sign-in depend on memorizing or solving a puzzle.

The failures that show up most

The Justice Department's guidance on web accessibility lists the barriers it sees most often. They match what a careful review of almost any company site turns up.

• Low contrast. Light gray text on white looks refined in a design file. WCAG AA asks for a contrast ratio of at least 4.5 to 1 for normal text and 3 to 1 for large text.
• Color as the only signal. A required field marked only in red, or a chart that relies on color alone.
• Missing or useless alt text. A screen reader announces "image" or "IMG_4471.jpg." Images that carry meaning need a short text alternative. Decorative ones should be skipped.
• Mouse-only controls. Menus that open on hover, sliders and pop-ups that can't be reached or closed with a keyboard.
• Unlabeled forms. Placeholder text instead of labels, and error messages that say "invalid" without saying what or where.
• Muddled headings. Headings chosen for their size rather than their place in the outline. Screen reader users jump by heading, so a broken outline is like a book with a scrambled table of contents.
• Video without captions. A product walkthrough with no captions shuts out anyone who can't hear it, including everyone watching in an open office with the sound off.

None of these is exotic. Most come from design and content decisions, not code, which is why they creep back after launch.

How to test, honestly

Testing has two halves, and you need both.

Automated checks scan a page and flag what a machine can detect: missing alt attributes, contrast failures, form fields without labels. They are fast and worth running on every release. The W3C is plain about their limits. It says evaluation tools can't determine accessibility, they can only assist, and that human judgment is required. The Justice Department says the same in its own words: a clean report doesn't necessarily mean everything is accessible.

A person covers the rest. A tool can confirm an image has alt text. It can't tell you the alt text says "graphic" when it should say "Sample job schedule for a three-crew week." A short, regular routine catches a lot:

1. Put the mouse away. Tab through the homepage, the main service page and every form. Can you see where you are at every step? Can you reach and use everything?
2. Zoom the browser to 200 percent. Does text still fit, or does it overlap and get cut off?
3. Turn on the screen reader built into your computer or phone and listen to a key page. Do the headings make sense on their own? Do links say where they go?
4. Submit each form with a deliberate mistake. Does the error message say what's wrong and where?

The W3C's Easy Checks page walks through more of these in plain terms. For anything important, go further and include people with disabilities in testing. The W3C's guidance on involving users explains why: experts following checklists still miss problems that real users hit in minutes.

Overlays and widgets

You have probably seen the small icon in the corner of some sites. Click it and a panel offers bigger text, different contrast, maybe a "screen reader mode." These are often called overlays. Some vendors sell them as a one-line fix for compliance.

Be careful with that promise. In January 2025 the FTC filed a complaint against accessiBe, a seller of one such tool, alleging that it falsely claimed its product could make any website compliant with WCAG. In April 2025 the FTC approved a final order requiring the company to pay $1 million. The order bars it from claiming its automated products can make any site WCAG compliant, or keep it compliant, unless it has evidence to support that.

The Justice Department's guidance takes a measured view. It says automated checkers and overlays that identify or fix problems can be helpful tools, but must be used carefully. Combined with the W3C's point that tools can't determine accessibility, the practical reading is simple. A widget may help a little at the edges. It doesn't replace fixing the site itself, and many people who rely on assistive technology already have their own settings and don't want a second set laid on top.

The legal side, stated carefully

This is not legal advice. It is the context worth knowing before you talk to your counsel.

• Businesses open to the public. Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act covers them. The Justice Department's guidance says it has consistently taken the position that the ADA applies to the goods and services they offer on the web, and that businesses have flexibility in how they comply. Website accessibility lawsuits under the ADA are real and filed regularly.
• State and local governments. In April 2024 the Justice Department published a Title II rule adopting WCAG 2.1 level AA for their web content and mobile apps. An interim final rule in April 2026 moved the compliance dates to April 26, 2027 for governments serving 50,000 people or more, and April 26, 2028 for smaller ones and special districts. The rule also says governments must make sure contractors providing services on their behalf comply.
• Contracts. Larger customers and public agencies increasingly write accessibility into vendor requirements, whatever the law requires of you directly.

What applies to your company depends on what you do, where and for whom. Talk to your counsel. What we can say is that fixing the common failures above is useful whatever the answer turns out to be.

Where to start

A full audit of every page is rarely the right first move for a mid-size company. Start where people actually try to do something.

1. Your forms: contact, quote, booking, job applications, any sign-in.
2. The pages that bring in inquiries. Our guide on knowing which pages bring in inquiries covers how to find them.
3. The navigation and footer, because they appear on every page.
4. The templates behind your page types, so fixes apply everywhere at once.

Then write down what you checked, when and against which standard. Many organizations publish a short accessibility statement with a way to report a problem. It tells visitors you are paying attention, and it gives them a better option than leaving.

What most guides miss

Content breaks accessibility more than code does. A site can launch clean and drift within months. A new hero image with text baked in. A PDF brochure with no structure. A video posted without captions. Train the people who publish, not just the people who build.

PDFs count. Price sheets, spec sheets and application forms in PDF are often the least accessible thing on a site. Where you can, publish the content as a page instead.

Third-party pieces are still your site. The booking tool, the chat window and the embedded map all appear under your name. Ask vendors how they meet WCAG, and test their parts with a keyboard yourself.

Accessible sites are easier to read for machines too. Real headings, text instead of images of text and descriptive links help search engines and AI assistants understand a page. It is a side benefit, not the reason, but it is real.

How we do it

We start with a free intro call and a keyboard-and-screen-reader pass on the pages that matter most to you. Then we work alongside your team to fix what's broken in the templates and forms, and to make checks part of how new pages get published. See websites and content for how the work runs.

Sources

1. W3C: Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2
2. W3C Web Accessibility Initiative: WCAG 2 overview
3. W3C Web Accessibility Initiative: What's new in WCAG 2.2
4. W3C Web Accessibility Initiative: Understanding contrast (minimum)
5. W3C Web Accessibility Initiative: Easy Checks
6. W3C Web Accessibility Initiative: Selecting web accessibility evaluation tools
7. W3C Web Accessibility Initiative: Involving users in evaluating web accessibility
8. ADA.gov: Guidance on web accessibility and the ADA
9. ADA.gov: Fact sheet on the Title II web and mobile app accessibility rule
10. FTC: FTC approves final order requiring accessiBe to pay $1 million (April 2025)