According to the World Health Organization, roughly one in six people lives with a significant disability, and even more people find the web temporarily or situationally harder to use — older users, someone with a broken arm, someone reading on a phone in bright sunlight. Accessibility means the site works for them too. The standard used to measure it is WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines), and level AA is the one most often required.
Short answer
WCAG is the international accessibility standard. The level most often required is WCAG 2.1 AA — the level EU rules for the public sector refer to. The most important items are sufficient contrast, image descriptions, full keyboard use, correctly labelled forms and a clear heading structure.
Who needs to care about accessibility
- Public institutions and utilities — in the EU the obligation comes from Directive (EU) 2016/2102, and in Bosnia and Herzegovina WCAG 2.1 AA appears more and more often in tender documents.
- Donor-funded projects — the EU and international organisations generally require accessible websites and publications.
- Businesses selling to consumers in the EU — the European Accessibility Act (Directive (EU) 2019/882) has applied since 28 June 2025 to certain products and services, including e-commerce; microenterprises providing services are exempt.
- Schools and healthcare providers — their users include children, older people and people with disabilities.
The four WCAG principles
| Principle | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Perceivable | Content can be seen or heard | Image descriptions, video captions, sufficient contrast |
| Operable | The site can be used in different ways | Everything works by keyboard, no time limits |
| Understandable | Content and behaviour are predictable | Clear form error messages, page language declared |
| Robust | Works with assistive technologies | Valid HTML that screen readers understand |
A 15-minute check
This isn’t a full audit, but it reveals most problems on a typical site:
- Keyboard. Click in the address bar and press Tab repeatedly. Can you see where you are on the page? Can you open the menu, fill in the form and send it without a mouse?
- Contrast. Is grey text on a white background easy to read? Normal text needs a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1.
- Zoom. Zoom the page to 200% (Ctrl and +). Can you still read the content without scrolling left and right?
- Images. Do images that carry information have a description (alt text)? Decorative images don’t need one.
- Forms. Does every field have a visible label, not just placeholder text that disappears when you type? Does an error message say exactly what to fix?
- Headings. Does the page have one main heading and logical subheadings?
- Links. Does the link text say where it leads, instead of “click here”?
- Automated test. Run PageSpeed Insights or the WAVE tool and look at the reported errors.
Important
Automated tools detect only some problems. A score of 100 does not mean a site is fully accessible — manual testing with a keyboard and a screen reader is still needed.
The problems I find most often
- light grey text on white and text over photos without a darker background;
- a mobile menu that can’t be opened with a keyboard;
- the focus outline removed “because it looks ugly”;
- documents published as scanned PDFs with no text;
- contact forms without field labels and with CAPTCHAs that are hard to solve.
Accessibility from the start is cheaper
When accessibility is planned from the design stage, it costs a little extra work. When it’s fixed on a finished site, it often means changing colours, menus and forms. If you are procuring a new portal, put WCAG 2.1 AA into the requirements — examples are in how to write a technical specification for a website tender.
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Engimotive · Published October 28, 2026