Website Accessibility: 8 Basic Rules for Designing for Everyone

Accessibility matters not only for users with disabilities but for an ageing population, mobile users and search engines.

Eight rules

• At least 4.5:1 contrast between text and background
• Meaningful alt text on every image
• Full keyboard navigation with visible focus
• A meaningful heading hierarchy (one H1, ordered H2–H3)
• Labels and error descriptions on form fields
• Link text that describes the destination, not “click here”
• Captions on video, transcripts for audio
• Respect for prefers-reduced-motion

Testing

A Lighthouse accessibility score, a keyboard navigation pass and five minutes with a screen reader surface most issues. Make accessibility part of the pre-launch checklist.