Accessibility, and why it quietly improves everything else

Accessibility gets treated as a compliance topic, which is why most Indian businesses skip it. That framing undersells it badly. Nearly every accessibility fix is also a usability fix and a search fix.

The overlap

• Alt text on images. Written for screen readers. Also the only way a search engine knows what an image shows.
• Proper headings. Lets somebody navigate by structure. Also how a search engine understands what the page is about.
• Real contrast. Needed by people with weak vision. Also needed by a buyer reading a phone outdoors at 2pm in May.
• Text as text. Screen readers can’t read images of text. Neither can search engines or AI assistants.
• Big tap targets. Helps people with tremors. Helps everybody using one thumb on a bus.
• Labelled form fields. Required for screen readers. Also cuts abandoned forms for everybody.

Six accessibility items, six things that improve search performance and conversion for everybody.

The Indian context

The international reference standard is WCAG. In India, the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act 2016 requires accessible information and services, and government and public sector sites are held to that. Private sector obligations are less clearly enforced today.

Two practical reasons to care anyway. If you sell to government or PSUs, accessibility shows up in tender requirements, and failing it can cost you the bid. And India has a very large population with some form of visual impairment. Some of them are your buyers.

Four checks you can run yourself

• Tab through the page. Use only the Tab key. If you can’t reach the menu, the form and the buttons, neither can a screen reader.
• Zoom to 200 percent. Text should reflow and stay readable. If the layout breaks, it breaks for a lot of older buyers too.
• Take it outside. Read your site on a phone in daylight. Low contrast grey text disappears immediately.
• Turn off images. If the page becomes meaningless, too much of your content is trapped inside pictures.

What it costs to build in

Almost nothing, if it’s done from the start. It’s a set of habits rather than a feature. Retrofitting an existing site is more work, mostly because the images need alt text and the colours often need adjusting.

Avoid the overlay widgets that promise instant accessibility for a monthly fee. They’re widely criticised by actual screen reader users, they slow the page down, and they paper over problems rather than fixing them.

Written by Sameer Gaikwad, founder of Buildgin. Thirty three years in electrical power systems across global MNCs, now applying the same condition monitoring habit to websites.