20 Mar An Accessible Website: Why It’s Crucial for Legal Protection and User Experience

In 2025, having an eye-catching website is essential, but it’s just as important to ensure that your site is accessible to all users, including those with disabilities. An accessible website isn’t just a nice-to-have—it’s a legal requirement. With an increase in litigation surrounding non-compliant websites, ensuring your site meets accessibility standards can help protect your business and demonstrate your commitment to inclusivity, allowing you to reach a broader audience.

Did you know that many courts consider websites places of public accommodation, similar to physical businesses? That means they must meet accessibility standards to avoid discriminating against individuals with different abilities. Since the website design world is constantly evolving and accessibility laws are changing, we’re breaking it all down for you.

Where Do These Laws Come From?

Many countries have laws requiring digital accessibility, such as the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) in the U.S. and the European Accessibility Act in the EU. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) set the global standard for accessibility and are often used as the benchmark for compliance.

How Do I Start Implementing Changes?

To comply with WCAG, there are several website features to ensure you have in place:

• Keyboard Navigation: Ensure all interactive elements (menus, buttons, forms) are navigable without a mouse.
• Alt Text for Images: Descriptive text for images helps visually impaired users who rely on screen readers.
• Readable Fonts & Contrast: High color contrast and easily readable fonts help users with visual impairments.
• Closed Captions & Transcripts: Videos should have captions, and audio content should have transcripts.
• Accessible Forms: Forms should have clear labels, error messages, and assistive technology support.

This list is not exhaustive, but it’s a good starting point. An accessible website needs to be regularly audited to ensure compliance. Website code is not static—it changes and evolves, so compliance is an ongoing effort, not a one-time fix.

Why An Accessible Website Matters

The Benefits

We all want to serve our customers as best as possible, and making accessibility updates on your website ensures you can do just that. The more people can interact with your site in a way that works for them, the better! Updates made with disabled users in mind, like color contrast adjustments, benefit everyone. Additionally, implementing accessibility improvements can boost your SEO, as search engines tend to prioritize accessible sites.

The Consequences

However, it’s important to note that there are potential consequences for non-compliance. Lawsuits and fines can arise if your site is found to be non-compliant.

How Do I Ensure Compliance?

There are certain updates that we can help you with, such as font changes, navigation simplifications, etc. However, some updates can become quite time-consuming, like checking alt tags. If you have hundreds of images on your site, going through them one-by-one can take many hours. Similarly, analyzing your site’s code line-by-line for compliance is often not feasible due to the time required.

Even websites designed with the best accessibility practices in mind may still fall short of full compliance, as accessibility standards and laws continue to evolve. That’s why it’s beneficial to use a tool like Userway, which automatically makes code updates as your website changes and as laws evolve. Although it comes with an annual fee, that cost is well worth it to protect your business from potential legal risks and ensure your site remains accessible to all. We can help you get set up with UserWay to reduce risk and increase accessibility—just reach out to us to get started. We’ll be happy to answer any questions you may have.

Ready to protect your business by implementing Userway? Need a consistent marketing partner who will keep you up-to-date on business protections like this? Contact Path & Compass today—we’d love to chat. You can even request a free marketing audit from our team, and we’ll lead you down tried-and-true paths to help you grow.