Web accessibility – so that everyone can access and use your website easily
What is web accessibility?
Watch the short video introduction (4 minutes) below to learn more about web accessibility and the W3C standards.
Source: W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). Copyright World Wide Web Consortium. W3C®
How can web accessibility help your business?
Accessible design can improve the overall user experience of your website and help you reach a wider audience by making it accessible to everyone.
The number of people with disabilities is not negligible:
- According to the Council of the EU and the European Council, 101 million people, or 27% of the EU population over 16, had some form of disability in 2022.
- According to the World Health Organization, approximately 1.3 billion people in the world have a significant disability. That is one in six people worldwide, or 16% of the world’s population.
The European Accessibility Act
According to the European Commission, the European Accessibility Act (Directive 2019/882) requires some widely used products and services to be accessible to people with disabilities. This follows a commitment to accessibility made by the EU and all Member States when they ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The European Accessibility Act identifies features of products and services that must be accessible to people with disabilities using functional EU accessibility requirements without imposing detailed technical restrictions, leaving room for innovation and flexibility.
The European Accessibility Act requires websites to display information about their accessibility features. Users must be able to consult a website’s content and structure and navigate through its pages, even when using assistive devices.
Companies (excluding microenterprises) must ensure that websites launched after June 28, 2025, are accessible. In addition, customers will have the right to complain to national courts or authorities if any services or products covered by the European Accessibility Act do not comply with the new rules.
EU Member States may decide to allow more time to apply the new national law implementing the European Accessibility Act. To confirm when the new rules apply in your country, please check with your legal department or attorney.