Beyond Compliance: Practical Web Accessibility Tips

You could spend days wading through vague or overly technical articles about online accessibility, bombarded by sales pitches from products promising to "make you compliant" with minimal effort. But what does accessibility really mean to a digital or marketing team in the arts, when you're updating your subscription page, adding a video to promote an upcoming event, or launching that new education program you've been planning for months?

Our client services team is asked about accessibility all the time, and one of most important things for us to convey is that making a website truly accessible goes far beyond the code we write. The heart of good accessibility is simple: every person visiting your site should be able to access the same information, no matter their vision, hearing, motor skills, or other abilities. Here’s what that means to us:

Organizing content with headers

A well-organized webpage creates a better experience for everyone—including for people using screenreaders, software tools that help people with visual or reading difficulties to navigate a site. When you structure your content with clear headers and sub headers, you're not just making your page look nice; you're helping all visitors find what they need quickly. And in addition to good design, it’s strongly encouraged by WCAG standards.

Headers create a roadmap that helps readers scan for the information they want more efficiently, and screenreaders let users jump from header to header instead of having to listen to every word on the page. This means that it’s important to use proper header tags (H1, H2, H3, etc.) rather than just making text bigger or bolder. Using this kind of “semantic” HTML makes them more useful to human readers and search engines alike.

Remember: Always use your CMS's text editor to create actual headers instead of faking it with formatting. This small step makes a huge difference for people using screenreaders to navigate your site.

Read the WCAG Standard

Descriptive CTAs

Improving your CTAs is a small but impactful change you can make to your website and email content strategy. Instead of vague phrases like "click here" or "learn more," use specific phrases that indicate where the link leads: "Read Article," "Buy Tickets," or "View the Collection."

This simple switch helps in two important ways:

First, when screenreader users navigate through links on your page or email, they need to know where each link will take them without visual cues like button location, color, or other design features. With descriptive links, they can understand the purpose without needing extra context.

Second, specific CTAs create visual points of interest that naturally draw attention and help guide all visitors to different sections of your website to improve the discoverability of your content. Your pages and emails will be more engaging to everyone in addition to improving your WCAG compliance.

Read the WCAG Standard

Audio & Video

We love a good event promo video—it captures the energy of an upcoming performance, the emotional resonance of a new exhibition, or the transformative potential of an educational program. However, the power of your stories should extend to every potential audience member, regardless of how they experience digital media.

When integrating video and audio assets across your digital ecosystem, accessibility considerations should be a core part of your content strategy rather than a technical afterthought. WCAG standards provide a structured framework for creating media experiences that serve diverse audience needs while enhancing overall engagement potential.

Captions: Major digital platforms including YouTube and Vimeo have integrated captioning directly into their content management interfaces. While captions were originally created for Deaf or hard of hearing audiences, they also assist non-native language speakers, people watching in louder environments, and social media users where videos are muted by default. Read the WCAG Standard

Audio Descriptions: If information is conveyed in a video purely through visuals, WCAG AA compliance requires an audio description for low-vision or blind users. As of March 2025 Youtube’s audio description feature is in a beta release, but WCAG accepts a full text alternative if necessary. Read the WCAG Standard

Audio transcripts: For podcast content and standalone audio, transcripts are required to allow Deaf or hard-of-hearing audiences to experience your content. Text transcripts also improve searchability for all users, particularly for longer pieces of audio. Read the WCAG Standard

Conclusion

Keeping your web content accessible creates a better experience for all of your users, similar to the way that automatic doors make life more convenient for many people in addition to wheelchair users. By getting the details right, you can create a better experience for each person who visits your site and deepen your relationship with your community. 

On the surface, accessibility plugins like Accessibe seem to guarantee quick, easy wins to improve your site without adding steps to your workflow. But in web accessibility, the old adage applies: if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. Most audiences who need assistive technology already have their devices set up to meet their needs and don’t want a plugin to navigate your site. In fact, plugins can actually interfere with a screenreader or other assistive tools, potentially making the experience worse rather than better. 

Over the years we’ve seen the WCAG standards evolve to better meet the needs of users and incorporate new technologies. If your site is more than a few years old, contact us about a full or partial accessibility audit. Our team can look at your code and content on the whole site or a few key pages and make recommendations to help you meet your accessibility goals.