An accessible site that meets WCAG 2.1 AA

It is a list of concrete conditions a site has to meet so it can be used without a mouse, without good eyesight and without sound. Level AA is the one the law points at: sufficient text contrast, a visible focus indicator, keyboard operation, sensible headings and form labels, descriptions for images, captions for video. Level AAA is stricter and is not required.

Usually yes, if you sell to or serve customers online and you are not a microenterprise (fewer than 10 people and up to €2m turnover). The services named include e-commerce, banking and payment services, telecoms, passenger transport, e-books and services giving access to audiovisual media. Public bodies are covered by the older Web Accessibility Directive, where WCAG 2.1 AA has applied for years. If you are not sure which group you are in, write to me — I will tell you how it looks and I will not turn that into a sales call.

No, because no such document exists — there is no body that issues WCAG certificates. What you get is an audit report: what was tested, by what method, what conforms, what does not, and on what date. That is the evidence people actually use, and it is what your accessibility statement is built from.

No. Overlays promise conformance from a single script, but they do not fix the code underneath and they can get in the way of people using their own screen readers. Disability organisations have advised against them for years, and in the US sites have been sued despite having one installed. I do the fixes in the code.

No. I audit and fix any site: WordPress, Webflow, Shopify, a PrestaShop store or something hand-written. On closed platforms some things can only be changed by the vendor — then you get a precise list to raise with them, and I verify the result.

An audit of an ordinary business site is usually 3–5 working days from the start; the fixes take another week or two. A store or an app with a customer panel takes longer, because there are more journeys to walk. You get the dates with the quote, and I keep to them.

It is part of the package. For a private company it is a statement of how the service meets the requirements, which goes into your terms of service or general conditions. For a public body it is the formal accessibility statement in the prescribed template, built from the audit results. I write the text; publishing is yours or mine, depending on who has access.

No. Most of the work is invisible: semantics, labels, ARIA attributes, source order. Two things usually become visible — a clear focus ring when navigating by keyboard, and stronger contrast where the text was too light. Both can be done within your brand; if the brand colour fails on text, I propose a variant for that one use, not a new logo.

It does, though that is a side effect. Proper headings, alternative text, meaningful link labels and faster code are things screen readers, search engines and the language models summarising your page all like. I do not sell accessibility as an SEO trick, though — it is done for people, and the ranking is a bonus.

Two things cover the day to day: a short guide for whoever adds content (describe images, use real headings, never ship text as a picture) and a review every so often — around bigger changes, or once a year. I can do that as ongoing care, or you can call me in for a single review.