01 · The premise
“The power of the web is in its universality. Access by everyone, regardless of disability, is an essential aspect.”
Tim Berners-Lee - British inventor of the web, W3C, 1997
Access problems aren’t user problems - they’re design decisions that landed badly. Which button, which label, which colour, which deadline. That’s the social model of disability, the one underneath the Equality Act 2010: people are disabled by barriers, not by bodies. Remove the barrier and the “difficult user” quietly becomes just... a user.
If a service only works in ideal conditions, it doesn’t work. It just hasn’t met its conditions yet.
02 · The difference
Not compliance. Not even close.
A checklist tells you when to stop asking. Accessibility never stops asking - the regulations are the floor, and it’s entirely possible to pass every rule and still build a service nobody can finish.
03 · The lenses
Barrier is a design word.
Five lenses, one idea: the mismatch is the barrier, not the person. Pick a lens to see who it touches, what it breaks and what fixes it. Then count how many you met on your commute.
01 Sight
01 / 05Select a lens - or just keep scrolling. You’ll meet all five before lunch.
04 · The unit of work
Start from one honest sentence.
Every service should trace back to a real person mid-task. Build the sentence, then go and check it’s true - with the people it describes. Click the blanks to cycle through them.
As a , I need , so that .
64 combinations are possible - user research is how you learn which ones are real. Everything else is an expensive guess.
05 · The craft
The whole job, in one fix.
Accessibility work is rarely a rewrite - it’s a pass. Take what you were handed, find where it shuts people out, and stop doing that.
Please click here 1to proceed with your application. Date fields must be completed in the required format. 2Upon submission failure, your data entry will be deemed invalid 3and the session will expire.4
“Apply for a garden waste permit” - a link that says where it goes.
“Collection day - for example, 24/03/2026”: a visible label plus a hint.
“Enter a date in the future, like 24/03/2026”: an error that helps.
“Your answers save as you go”: no ten-minute clock.
4 barriers → 0. None of it needed a redesign - just attention. The form didn’t get prettier; it got finishable.
06 · The toolkit
Six checks that catch most of it.
None of this needs a budget. Each check is a habit you can run before lunch - and together they catch the vast majority of what GDS finds failing in the wild.
Unplug the mouse
Everything must work by keyboard alone, and the focus ring must stay visible. Tab through your page; if focus vanishes, so do your users.
“Tab, tab, Enter - never lost.” → not: “Hover over the menu to reveal it.”
Headings are the map
One h1, no skipped levels, and headings that tell the story on their own. Screen reader users navigate by headline alone - the skeleton must hold without the skin.
“Order a Blue Badge.” → not: “Welcome! What’s new?”
Respect 4.5 to 1
Body text needs a contrast ratio of 4.5:1; large text, 3:1. Design to the floor, not to taste - taste is how the pale grey got in.
#767676 on white passes. → #999999 is 2.85:1 - banned.
Label every input
A visible label, a hint, an example. Placeholders vanish on the first keystroke - and usually fail contrast too, so they’re not labels by any name.
“National Insurance number - it’s on your payslip, like QQ 12 34 56 C.”
Name the destination
Links must make sense out of context: no “click here”, no bare URLs, PDFs flagged with their size. Alt text for meaning; alt="" for decoration.
“Read the privacy notice (PDF, 2 pages).” → not: “Click here.”
Write for reading age 9
GOV.UK’s house rule, and a good one: plain English is not dumbing down - it’s the difference between reading and finishing for millions of adults.
“We’ll pay you on Friday.” → not: “Payment will be disbursed.”
07 · The proof
Contrast is measurable.
Two colours decide whether a page is readable at all - in sunlight, on a cheap screen, with low vision. Pick any pair, load the classics, and watch the verdict.
passes WCAG AA · 4.5:1 and up
the judge is warming up - pick two colours
- -AA · body text (4.5:1)
- -AA · large text (3:1)
- -AAA · body text (7:1)
Body text at 18px: a link to the permit form and a spot of ordinary prose, read on the 08:10 to Waterloo.
Large text at 29px, serif.
WCAG 2.2 AA asks 4.5:1 for body text and 3:1 for large text - and every public sector website and app in England, Scotland and Wales is monitored against it by GDS. #767676 is famously the lightest grey that still passes on white; #999999 is where readability goes to die.
08 · The evidence
And the numbers agree.
people in the UK are disabled - around 16.8 million users, customers, taxpayers and carers. Not a niche; a nation.
Family Resources Survey 2023/24 - DWP