Do small business websites need to be accessible?

By Charlie B, Deliberate Design.

The short answer: in the UK the Equality Act 2010 asks businesses to make reasonable adjustments so disabled people can use their services, and that includes a website. There is no fixed standard for a private small business, unlike the public sector. In practice a simple site done sensibly is already most of the way there.

What it means

Someone using a screen reader, someone who cannot see small grey text, someone who cannot use a mouse. Can they find your phone number and read your prices? If yes, you are doing the main thing.

The five things

• Text that is large enough and dark enough to read. No pale grey on white
• Every photo has a short description, so a screen reader can say what it is
• Links and buttons say what they do. "Call us", not "click here"
• The site works on a phone and when zoomed to 200 percent
• No text locked inside images, and no video that plays on its own

What our templates do

All five, by default. Proper headings, readable contrast, descriptions on every photo, and the builder asks you for a description when you add one. We test every template at 375 pixels wide, the width of a small phone.

Honest note

Nobody has been sued over a sole trader's one page website. The reason to do it is that the people it helps are customers too, and the fixes are free.