Accessible websites
Websites that every family can use
Many of the people reading a care provider's website are older, or have poor sight, hearing or dexterity. We build every website to the WCAG 2.2 AA standard, with an accessibility bar on every page so each visitor can adjust the site to suit them.
Accessibility decides whether people can use your site at all
For older visitors, readable text is not a nice extra.
Your visitors include people arranging care for themselves and husbands or wives arranging care for a partner. For them, being able to enlarge text or have a page read aloud can decide whether they can use your website. Many carers applying for jobs speak English as a second language, and a clear layout with listen to page helps them too.
Under the Equality Act 2010, anyone providing a service to the public must make reasonable adjustments so that disabled people are not put at a substantial disadvantage (section 20), and must not discriminate in the way the service is provided (section 29). Your website is one of the ways you provide your service. Building to WCAG 2.2 AA is the clearest way to show you have taken this seriously, and Google rewards the same things: clear headings, described images and fast pages. See how your current site scores with our free website grader.
How accessible is your website today?
Check your websiteWhat is built in
Accessible on every page
Text size
Visitors can increase the text size across the whole site in one tap, without the layout breaking.
High contrast
A high contrast mode makes text and buttons easier to see for people with low vision.
Readable font
Switches the site to a plainer font that many people with dyslexia find easier to read.
Listen to page
Reads the page aloud using the voice already built into the visitor’s phone or computer.
Keyboard and screen readers
A skip to content link, full keyboard navigation and properly marked up headings, lists and forms.
Described images and contrast
Alt text on every image and text colours that meet the AA contrast standard throughout.
Dementia friendly design
The principles stop at the front door
Dementia friendly design is well established for the physical environment: good contrast, clear signage, avoiding visual confusion, avoiding unnecessary movement and reflective surfaces. Almost none of it gets applied to the digital environment, even though the family carer doing the searching is usually on a phone, often late at night and under pressure, and people living with dementia use these sites too.
We build to the same principles on screen. In practice that means:
No moving imagery on a homepage
Nothing slides, fades or auto-plays while someone is trying to read. Movement pulls attention away and makes text harder to follow.
No carousels
A carousel hides content behind movement and timing. Everything that matters gets its own place on the page instead.
Contrast that survives a bright room
Text that still reads on a phone in daylight, not pale grey on white, and never colour alone to carry meaning.
Plain language, not sector vocabulary
Domiciliary, respite, CHC and FNC all get explained. A family should never need the jargon to find what they need.
Forms that do not time out
No session expiring mid enquiry, no losing what was typed, and no puzzle to prove you are human.
One clear next step
A phone number and one obvious action per page, in the same place every time, so there is nothing to relearn.
Where we have not managed it yet
Our own homepage has a moving band of screenshots, which by this standard should not be there. Until it goes, the system setting for reduced motion stops it automatically, and there is a pause button in the accessibility bar at the top of every page and beside the band itself. We would rather say that than pretend otherwise.
A warning worth hearing
Free accessibility checkers can be measuring nothing at all
On one large care directory we work on, scanners reported thousands of images with missing alternative text. The text was there. The page the scanner downloaded simply contained no images at all, because the browser builds them after the page loads, and the scanner never got that far.
A provider can pass that report and still be unusable for someone with sight loss. The reverse happens too: a perfectly accessible site can be marked down for faults it does not have. We test the way a person actually uses a site, with a keyboard, a screen reader and real contrast checks, and we tell you which of a report's findings are real.
How we work
Accessible from the foundations up
01
Designed for older visitors
Readable type sizes, generous spacing, clear buttons and colours that meet AA contrast from the first design.
02
Built and tested
We test with the keyboard, screen readers and contrast checks, on phones, tablets and computers.
03
Kept accessible
Your content management system asks for alt text on every image, so the site stays accessible as your team adds to it.
A website every family can use
Grade your current website for free, or talk to us about building an accessible website for your care service.
