Is your business website accessible to everyone?

Website accessibility means that people with a disability, or a temporary or situational limit, can use your site. That includes a visitor who uses a screen reader, someone who cannot use a mouse, a person with low vision, and anyone reading in bright sunlight on a phone. It is part of building a good site, and in some cases it is also a legal duty.

This guide explains the standards behind the word, the rules that matter for a business that sells in the United Kingdom and France, and what to ask your agency. It is general information and not legal advice. If you need to know whether a rule applies to your company, ask a lawyer who knows the field.

The standard behind the word: WCAG

Almost every accessibility rule points to the same technical standard: the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, known as WCAG, from the W3C. WCAG groups its tests into four principles. A site must be:

• Perceivable. Information is not only in colour or in an image. Images have text alternatives, video has captions, and text has enough contrast with its background.
• Operable. Everything works from a keyboard, focus is always visible, and nothing moves or times out in a way that traps a visitor.
• Understandable. Pages use a clear language, forms say what is wrong and how to fix it, and navigation behaves the same on every page.
• Robust. The code uses real headings, lists, buttons and labels, so that browsers and assistive software can read it.

Each test is rated A, AA or AAA. Most laws and most client briefs ask for level AA. See the WCAG quick reference for the full list.

Which rules apply in the UK and in France

The United Kingdom

The Equality Act 2010 (Great Britain) requires businesses that serve the public to make reasonable adjustments for disabled people. It does not name WCAG, but WCAG AA is a common benchmark for a website. Public sector bodies have a stricter, named rule: they must meet WCAG 2.2 AA and publish an accessibility statement. See the GOV.UK guidance for public sector websites.

France

France has its own reference, the RGAA (Référentiel général d'amélioration de l'accessibilité), which is built on WCAG. It binds public bodies and, under French law, some large private companies, and it asks for an accessibility statement and a way for users to report problems. See the RGAA page on numerique.gouv.fr.

The European Accessibility Act

The European Accessibility Act (Directive (EU) 2019/882) applies from 28 June 2025. It covers a list of products and services, among them e-commerce services sold to consumers. A business outside the EU can be in scope if it sells to consumers in the EU. Member states set the detail, and there are exemptions, for example for very small businesses providing services. Read the directive text or ask a lawyer whether your business is in scope. If you sell to French consumers from a UK company, this question is yours to check.

What an accessible site needs in practice

A short list covers most of the real problems we see on business sites:

• Text alternatives. Every meaningful image has a short description. A decorative image has an empty one, so a screen reader skips it.
• Contrast. Body text and buttons keep enough contrast with the background, including on hover and on a photo.
• Keyboard use. A visitor can open the menu, fill the form, change language and reach the checkout using only the keyboard, and always sees where the focus is.
• Real structure. One main heading per page, headings in order, buttons that are buttons and links that are links.
• Labelled forms. Each field has a visible label. An error says which field failed and why.
• Reduced motion. Animation stops, or becomes simple, for visitors who ask their device for less motion.
• Zoom and small screens. The page still works at 200% zoom and on a narrow phone, without sideways scrolling.
• Language. The page declares its language, so a screen reader pronounces the text in the right voice. On a bilingual site, this matters on every page.

A tool that scans a page finds only part of these problems. A person who tests with a keyboard and a screen reader finds the rest.

Accessibility and search

The two goals overlap. Clear headings, descriptive image text, descriptive link text, a fast page and a clean structure help a visitor who uses assistive software, and they also help a search engine understand the page. We do not claim that accessibility raises your ranking by itself. It removes barriers for people, and many of the same fixes remove barriers for crawlers.

Questions to ask your agency

• Which WCAG level do you build to, and how do you test it?
• Do you test by keyboard and with a screen reader, or only with an automatic scanner?
• Who writes the accessibility statement, if we need one?
• What happens when we add a page or a new feature after launch? New content can break a site that was accessible on the day it launched.
• Do the third-party tools we use, such as a booking widget or a cookie banner, meet the same standard?

Sources and further reading

• W3C: WCAG 2.2 quick reference
• W3C: accessibility principles
• GOV.UK: accessibility requirements for public sector websites and apps
• numerique.gouv.fr: RGAA and accessibility
• EUR-Lex: Directive (EU) 2019/882, the European Accessibility Act

Accessibility and speed often share the same fixes: see website speed.

How DMC Kreatif handles it

We build every site with semantic HTML, a visible keyboard focus, labelled forms and respect for reduced motion, and we check pages on phones and at several widths before a project is handed over. This is how we work. We do not promise a certificate or a legal outcome, because compliance depends on your business, your content and the rule that applies to you.

If a rule such as the RGAA or the European Accessibility Act matters to your project, say so in the brief. We then agree the target level and the testing in the quote. Tell us what the site must do, then ask for a quote. Within 48 h you get a concrete approach, a realistic timeline and a clear quote. Our website service page shows how a project runs.