Before we can talk about website basic accessibility, we need to learn a bit about the WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines). WCAG are a series of web accessibility guidelines published by the Web Accessibility Initiative of the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium), the main international standards organization for the Internet. WCAG 2 guidelines instruct on how to make web content more accessible to people with disabilities. Content such as text, images, and sounds and it also includes code or markup that defines structures, presentation, etc.
WCAG 2.2 has 13 guidelines and has three levels of conformance that you can meet; A, AA and AAA, and each is progressively harder.
Level A
Level A is designed to be the easiest guidelines to meet, without much impact on the website designer or structure of a website.
Level AA
Level AA requires a bit more commitment. You have to ensure that all the text meets color contract requirements.
Level AAA
Level AAA is even stricter and particularly for the contrast requirement for text. Basically, you can only use very dark colors on a very light background and vice versa. This level tends to be pretty specialist sites.
Shaw Web Designs strives for WCAG 2.1 A as do most designers and developers. This is the level that is legally required for certain sites and is the one that is typically referred to when you’re tasked with “making a website accessible”. Each website and business is different and your requirements may be different. Some sites may require a higher level and would need to outline those requirements to their web designer and developer.
If your website is older than three years, you definitely should have a Site Audit perform and have a plan to either update or upgrade your website to today’s best practices. Shaw Web Designs can help perform a Site Audit and also advise on whether a redesign or rebuild is required.