Website Accessibility Issues: Why They Matter to Everyone

When most people hear “website accessibility,” they picture screen readers and keyboard navigation—tools for people with disabilities. And that’s certainly part of the story. But here’s what often gets overlooked: accessibility improvements benefit everyone who uses your site.

That form label you add for screen reader users? It also helps someone filling out your form on a mobile phone while walking. Those larger click targets you create for motor-impaired users? They work better for everyone with a touchscreen. That clear heading structure you build for navigation? It helps every visitor understand your content faster.

Accessibility isn’t just about compliance or avoiding lawsuits—though those matter too. It’s about building websites that work well for humans in all their variety. And the gap between intention and reality is often wider than you’d expect.

The Real Impact of Accessibility Issues

The population of people who benefit from accessibility features is far larger than you might assume. The World Health Organization estimates that over one billion people worldwide—roughly 15% of the global population—live with some form of disability. But that’s just the starting point.

Consider situational limitations. A user watching a video in a noisy environment needs captions, just like a deaf user. Someone with a broken arm navigating with their non-dominant hand benefits from keyboard accessibility. A person using their phone in bright sunlight needs sufficient color contrast to read your content.

Consider age-related changes. Vision typically begins declining in a person’s forties. Fine motor control can diminish with age. Memory and attention patterns shift. Features designed for users with disabilities often help older users who don’t identify as having disabilities at all.

Consider temporary conditions. Eye infections, hand injuries, cognitive fog from illness or medication—these affect everyone at some point. The accessibility features you build today may help you personally tomorrow.

Beyond inclusive design principles, there’s the practical reality of legal requirements. The ADA and similar laws in other countries increasingly apply to websites. Organizations across sectors have faced legal action over inaccessible websites. But the goal shouldn’t be just avoiding lawsuits—it should be building sites that work for everyone.

Finally, consider the business case. Users who can’t navigate your site can’t become customers. Forms they can’t complete mean lost leads. Content they can’t read means missed engagement. Accessibility barriers are conversion barriers, even when they don’t trigger legal action.

Common Accessibility Problems

Understanding the most frequent accessibility issues helps you recognize them on your own site. These problems are remarkably common, even on professionally-built websites.

Missing Image Alt Text

Images without alternative text are invisible to screen readers. When a screen reader encounters an image lacking alt text, it either skips it entirely or announces the filename—rarely helpful. For users who rely on screen readers, missing alt text creates gaps in content that sighted users take for granted.

Alt text should describe what the image conveys, not just what it shows. An image of a graph needs to communicate the data, not just say “graph.” A photo of your team should describe who’s in it and what they’re doing, not just say “photo.”

Unlabeled Form Inputs

Form fields without proper labels are a navigation nightmare for screen reader users. When someone tabs into a field, the screen reader announces the label—but if there’s no programmatic connection between label and input, the user hears nothing helpful. They’re left guessing what information to provide.

Even for sighted users, unlabeled inputs cause problems. Placeholder text disappears when you start typing, leaving no indication of what was requested. Proper labels remain visible throughout the process.

Unclear Link Text

“Click here” and “Read more” tell users nothing about where a link goes. Screen reader users often navigate by scanning just the links on a page, and a list of “click here” links is useless without context. Links should describe their destination: “View our pricing plans” or “Download the annual report.”

This benefits everyone. Clear link text helps all users predict where they’ll land, reducing hesitation and improving click-through rates.

Improper Heading Structure

Headings create a navigable structure for content. Screen reader users often jump between headings to find relevant sections, similar to how sighted users scan a page visually. But this only works if headings are used semantically—H1 for the main title, H2 for major sections, H3 for subsections—rather than just styled for appearance.

Skipping heading levels (jumping from H1 to H3) breaks this navigation. Using headings purely for styling rather than structure creates a confusing hierarchy. Proper heading structure benefits everyone trying to understand your content’s organization.

Insufficient Color Contrast

Text that doesn’t contrast sufficiently with its background becomes difficult to read in many conditions. Low contrast affects users with low vision, color blindness, or simply anyone viewing your site on a screen with glare.

The standard guidelines specify minimum contrast ratios—4.5:1 for normal text, 3:1 for large text. These ratios aren’t arbitrary; they’re based on research into what makes text readable for the widest range of users.

Missing Focus Indicators

When users navigate with keyboards, they need to see which element is currently focused. Default browser focus indicators (usually a dotted outline) are often removed for aesthetic reasons, leaving keyboard users unable to track their position on the page.

Custom focus styles can look better than browser defaults while still providing clear visibility. Removing focus indicators entirely creates a barrier for anyone not using a mouse.

How These Issues Slip Through

If accessibility matters so much, why do problems persist on so many websites? The causes are familiar, even if frustrating.

Developers and designers usually aren’t disabled. When you build a site using a mouse with perfect vision, you experience a fundamentally different site than someone using a screen reader or keyboard. Problems invisible to you are obvious to them.

Visual design tools don’t enforce accessibility. You can create beautiful mockups with terrible contrast, elegant layouts with no heading structure, and sleek forms with no labels. Nothing in typical design workflows flags these issues.

Testing is often incomplete. Teams test in Chrome with a mouse. Manual accessibility testing requires specific skills and takes time. Without automated checking, problems persist unseen.

Content comes from many sources. Even if developers build accessible templates, content creators adding images without alt text or using headings incorrectly can introduce new problems daily.

Accessibility is often an afterthought. When accessibility isn’t considered from the start, retrofitting becomes expensive and imperfect. Problems get documented but not fixed.

How Auditoro Helps

Automated accessibility scanning catches many common issues that manual review misses. When you add a site to Auditoro, it analyzes your pages for accessibility problems—missing alt text, unlabeled inputs, contrast issues, heading structure problems, and more.

The scanning process checks real pages as users experience them, not just source code. This catches issues introduced by JavaScript, CMS plugins, and dynamic content that static analysis would miss.

Results identify specific elements on specific pages. Rather than a generic “you have accessibility problems,” you see exactly which image lacks alt text and where to find it. This specificity makes fixes practical rather than overwhelming.

Scheduled scans provide ongoing monitoring. When new content introduces accessibility issues—an image uploaded without alt text, a form added without labels—you know quickly rather than discovering problems months later.

Auditoro doesn’t replace comprehensive accessibility audits or user testing with disabled people. But it catches the common, detectable issues that represent low-hanging fruit. Fixing automated findings creates a stronger baseline for deeper accessibility work.

Making Accessibility Part of Your Process

The most effective approach to accessibility integrates it throughout your workflow rather than treating it as a final checkpoint.

When planning content, consider how it will work for all users. Will that infographic need alt text describing the data? Will that video need captions? Will that interactive element work with keyboard navigation?

When designing, check contrast ratios early. Choose heading structures that reflect content hierarchy. Ensure interactive elements have sufficient size and spacing.

When developing, test with keyboards and screen readers periodically. Don’t wait until the final QA pass to discover fundamental navigation problems.

When creating content, train your team on alt text and heading usage. Make accessibility part of your content guidelines, not an extra step.

Regular scanning with tools like Auditoro catches issues that slip through despite good intentions. No process is perfect, and automated checking provides a safety net.

Accessibility isn’t a destination—it’s an ongoing practice. The goal isn’t perfection but continuous improvement, making your site work better for more people over time.

Ready to discover what accessibility issues might be on your site? Start a free scan with Auditoro and see where you stand in minutes.