The accessibility checks we run before anything ships.

About one in six people worldwide lives with a significant disability, and almost everyone will need some help from good design at some point: a broken arm, bright sunlight, a noisy train, tired eyes at midnight.

Accessibility is also now a legal expectation in many markets. The European Accessibility Act has applied to a wide range of consumer products and services since June 2025, and the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.2) are the reference most regulators and buyers use. We treat WCAG 2.2 level AA as the floor, not the goal.

The checks below are the ones we run on every screen, template and campaign before it ships. They take hours, not weeks, when they are part of the work from the start. Tick off the ones your own team already does.

Seeing the screen

• Body text has a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 against its background; large text at least 3:1.
• Buttons, inputs and icons that carry meaning have at least 3:1 contrast with their surroundings.
• Colour is never the only signal: errors, status and links also use words, icons or underlines.
• Text can be enlarged to 200 per cent without content overlapping or disappearing.
• Layouts reflow to a narrow phone width without sideways scrolling.

Using the screen

• Everything that works with a mouse also works with a keyboard alone.
• The keyboard focus is always clearly visible and moves in a sensible order.
• Tap targets are at least 24 by 24 pixels, and we aim for 44 on touch screens.
• Nothing important depends on hovering, dragging or precise gestures without an alternative.
• People get enough time to read and act, and can pause anything that moves on its own.

If a design only works for people exactly like the designer, it does not work.

Understanding the screen

• Every page has one clear main heading, and headings follow a logical order.
• Form fields have visible labels, not just placeholder text that vanishes.
• Error messages say what went wrong and how to fix it, next to the field concerned.
• Language is plain: short sentences, common words, no unexplained jargon.
• Links say where they go; nothing is called ‘click here’.

Images, sound and motion

• Every meaningful image has alt text that describes what it shows and why it is there.
• Decorative images are marked so screen readers skip them.
• Videos have captions; important audio has a transcript.
• Animation respects the reduced motion setting, and nothing flashes more than three times a second.

Content and documents

Accessibility does not stop at the interface. PDFs, slide decks, emails and social posts reach more people than most screens, and they are where accessibility most often breaks. A brochure exported as one flat image cannot be read aloud. A social video without captions excludes everyone watching on mute, which is most people on a train.

• Export documents with real headings, reading order and tagged images, not as flat pictures.
• Give social images alt text and burn captions into short videos.
• Write link text and email subject lines that make sense out of context.
• Keep text out of images wherever it can live as real text instead.

Testing with real tools

Automated checkers catch perhaps a third of real problems. They are a useful first pass and a poor final word. Before launch we also test by hand.

1. Navigate the whole journey using only the keyboard.
2. Listen to the key pages with a screen reader on desktop and on a phone.
3. Zoom to 200 and 400 per cent and check nothing breaks.
4. Switch on high contrast, dark mode and reduced motion and look again.
5. Where possible, watch people with disabilities use the product and fix what they find.

The pre-launch checklist

Use this short version as the final gate before anything ships.

Make it a habit, not an audit

The most expensive way to do accessibility is to audit a finished product and fix it afterwards. The cheapest is to build the rules into your tokens, components and templates, so every new screen starts accessible. Contrast that passes by default, focus states designed once and used everywhere, and form patterns with labels built in will do more than any end-of-project review.