Web Accessibility: 5 Checklist Items Your Site Might Be Missing [Checklist]

Web Accessibility is no longer a niche concern reserved for government portals or large enterprises. It is a foundational principle of good design, and increasingly, a legal and commercial necessity for every business with a digital presence. Consider this: a website that excludes users with visual, auditory, or motor impairments is quietly turning away a meaningful segment of potential customers before they ever reach your product. Most business owners assume their site is "accessible enough" simply because it looks polished. In our work with clients across sectors at Cpluz, we've found that visual polish and genuine accessibility are frequently two very different things. This article walks through five checklist items your site might be missing, why they matter, and how to address them without derailing your existing design.

A Strategic Cpluz Perspective

Most agencies treat accessibility as a compliance checkbox, something to bolt on right before launch. We approach it differently, through what we call the Cpluz "A-R-C" Framework: Audit, Remediate, Cultivate.

Audit means testing with actual assistive technology, not just automated scanners, because scanners catch perhaps a third of real-world barriers. Remediate means fixing issues at the design and code level, not patching them with a bolt-on accessibility widget. Cultivate means training your internal content team so accessibility does not regress with every new blog post or product page you publish.

Here is the counter-intuitive part: accessible design frequently improves conversion rates for all users, not just those with disabilities. Larger touch targets, clearer contrast, and logical navigation reduce friction for everyone. A mistake we often see tech-sector businesses make is treating accessibility improvements as purely defensive spending, when they are, in practice, a usability upgrade with a built-in legal safety net. When we redesigned the navigation structure for one of our retail clients, session duration on mobile increased noticeably, simply because the simplified, keyboard-friendly menu was easier for every visitor to use, not only screen-reader users. That pattern is worth remembering: accessibility fixes rarely stay isolated to one user group.

Is Your Color Contrast Actually Compliant?

Probably not, if you have never explicitly tested it. Color contrast is one of the most commonly failed accessibility criteria, because a color pairing can look perfectly readable to a designer with excellent vision on a calibrated monitor, yet fail contrast ratio standards for users with low vision or color blindness. Light gray text on white backgrounds, a popular minimalist aesthetic, is a frequent offender.

To check this properly, you need to measure the contrast ratio between your text and its background, not just eyeball it. Pay particular attention to:

Body text against background colors
Button text against button fill colors
Placeholder text inside form fields
Text overlaid on images or gradients

If your brand palette relies on soft pastels or muted tones, you may need a secondary "accessible" variant of key colors reserved specifically for text.

Can Someone Navigate Your Entire Site Using Only a Keyboard?

If the answer is no, you have a significant Web Accessibility gap. Many users with motor impairments, and a surprising number of power users, navigate exclusively via keyboard using the Tab key, arrow keys, and Enter. Try it yourself: unplug your mouse and attempt to complete a purchase or fill out a contact form using only your keyboard.

Common failures include focus states that are invisible or missing, dropdown menus that trap keyboard focus, and modal windows that cannot be closed without a mouse click. Each of these represents a real user who simply cannot complete their task on your site.

Are Your Images and Icons Missing Alternative Text?

Almost certainly, yes, at least for some of them. Alternative text, or alt text, describes an image for users relying on screen readers, and it also serves search engines trying to understand your visual content. A mistake we often see is decorative images given lengthy, unnecessary alt descriptions while genuinely informative images, like infographics or icon-based navigation, are left blank.

The fix requires a bit of editorial judgment:

Purely decorative images should have empty alt attributes so screen readers skip them
Informative images need concise, accurate descriptions of their function or content
Icon buttons without visible text labels need alt text describing their action, not their appearance

Does Your Site Work Without Relying on Color Alone?

It should never depend on color as the sole indicator of meaning. A classic example is a form that marks required fields only with red text, or a status indicator that uses only a red or green dot. Users with color blindness, which affects a notable portion of men in particular, cannot distinguish these cues.

Pair color with a secondary signal: an asterisk, a text label, an icon shape, or an underline. This principle extends to charts and graphs on your site as well, where patterns or labels should supplement color-coded legends.

Is Your Site Structured With Proper Heading Hierarchy?

This one is easy to overlook because it is invisible to sighted users browsing casually. Screen reader users frequently navigate by jumping between headings, similar to how a sighted user skims a page visually. If your headings skip levels, or if you have used bold, large text to simulate a heading without an actual heading tag, that navigation shortcut breaks down entirely.

Your content should follow a clear, nested structure, one primary heading per page, with subheadings organized logically beneath it, rather than headings chosen for visual size alone.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How do I know if my website has accessibility issues?
A: Start with a manual keyboard-only navigation test and a contrast checker tool, then supplement that with an actual screen reader test, since automated scanners alone miss a large share of real barriers.

Q: Is Web Accessibility a legal requirement in India?
A: Regulatory expectations are evolving and increasingly reference international standards, so treating accessibility as optional rather than foundational is a growing business risk, particularly for companies serving government or enterprise clients.

Q: Will improving accessibility slow down my website or hurt its design?
A: No, when addressed early in the design process, accessibility and strong visual design work together rather than against each other, since clear structure and readable contrast tend to improve the experience for every visitor.

Q: How often should accessibility be reviewed?
A: Treat it as an ongoing practice rather than a one-time audit, reviewing your site whenever you add new pages, redesign templates, or update your content management workflow.

About the Author

Rajendaran is the Lead Digital Strategist at Cpluz, where he blends creative design with data-driven marketing strategies to help Indian businesses build powerful and profitable online presences. He has guided technology and retail businesses through practical accessibility audits that strengthen usability, protect against legal exposure, and improve engagement across every visitor segment.

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