In June this year (2025, if you’re reading this in the future - hi from the past!), the European Accessibility Act (EAA) became law. This means certain industries, companies, and organisations must make their sites and digital offerings accessible by meeting Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.2 (WCAG 2.2).
Meeting these guidelines ensures that almost all users can use your site or digital offering, including people with visual impairments, those unable to use a mouse, or individuals with learning difficulties, among others.
Who Must Meet WCAG
Chances are you won’t be required by law to meet WCAG because, firstly, businesses not trading in the EU aren’t included. Since the UK is no longer part of the European Union, businesses operating solely in the UK aren’t affected by this law.
What if you do trade internationally? Then ask yourself if you work in one of the following sectors:
- Computers and Operating Systems
- Smartphones
- TV Equipment and Related Broadcasting Services
- Transport Services
- Banking
- E-Books
- E-Commerce
- ATMs, Ticketing, and Check-In Machines
If you don’t, you’re not affected by the EAA. If you are, then there’s one last quick question:
Are you a microenterprise? Meaning, do you have fewer than 10 staff members and earn less than 2 million euros annually? If yes, you might be able to argue that you can’t reasonably meet all requirements to pass the EAA (though if you’re making close to 2 million a year, you probably can, but I didn’t write the act).
The chances of meeting all these criteria and reading this are very low (because this is something you should have sorted already); if you are affected, make sure to get in touch!
Why You Should Still Aim to Meet WCAG
Now, just because you likely aren’t affected by the EAA, and so won’t be fined for not meeting WCAG, there’s still a very good reason to meet these guidelines.
The 2010 Equality Act.
Under this act, you cannot discriminate against a person or group who fall under any of the protected characteristics - the one we’ll focus on here is Disability.
If your business or organisation has a target market that includes users with disabilities, it’s incredibly important to meet these standards. Without them, your website or digital offering may be unusable for users with disabilities, which could be considered discriminatory.
This is what makes WCAG so important and actually very helpful since it outlines exactly how to make your website more accessible.
Tools to Help You Make Your Site Accessible
For this article, I’ll explain how to do this in Webflow since that’s the platform I use for my websites.
Here are two great resources to help make your site more accessible:
- Webflow’s Accessibility Checklist
- Client-First by Finsweet
Webflow’s Accessibility Checklist
Webflow has taken the WCAG and created a checklist of 48 items for you to cover. If you can tick off all these boxes, congratulations, you meet WCAG! What I love most about this tool is that Webflow includes guides for each step so you understand why it’s important and how to implement changes on your site. It’s one of my top five tools as a web designer.
Client-First by Finsweet
Finsweet is a web agency and Webflow partner that created a cool cloneable site with every style class you’ll need, along with a guide on how to use them. The main goal of this resource is to help designers create sites that clients can easily use and edit through clear labeling and good design practices. Bonus: Good design practice = better user accessibility. Simply put, Finsweet has done us all a huge favour by making a site you can copy and paste into yours, using their text, image, and section classes to create a clearer and more accessible site.
Combining these two resources will give you a great head start in making your site accessible and meeting WCAG.
My Tips for Accessible Web Design
Using REM Units Instead of Pixels for Text
REM stands for Root em unit - I know that name isn’t very helpful, but bear with me. Root em is the default text size in a user’s browser; typically, it’s 16 pixels. So 1rem = 16 pixels. Why use REM instead of pixels? If you set all your text sizes in pixels, you override the browser default for users. If someone increases their text size in their settings, it won’t affect your site, making it harder for them to read. Using REM directly responds to the user’s browser text settings. If they increase the size to make it easier to read, your site will adjust accordingly.
Avoid Excessive Motion
Many of us love flashy sites with animated text and stunning moving imagery. But for people with cognitive disabilities like ADHD or those prone to seizures triggered by excessive motion, this can be harmful. On my sites, I never have motion behind text since even small amounts can be uncomfortable. I also limit text animations, they’re overused anyway. Another thing to consider is video. Autoplay videos at the start of a homepage are common but can be harmful without user controls because users have no control over them.
Check Your Colour Scheme
A good brand is more than just a logo, and I really appreciate brand designers who know their stuff when it comes to colour schemes. It’s not about picking colours that “look nice together”, we’re not designing your living room; this is a website. A good rule of thumb: Do the colours work in greyscale? Go deeper - convert your colour scheme to greyscale and use it on your site. Check if interactions like buttons changing colour still stand out or if colours blend too much. These considerations matter for users with variations of colour blindness. If in doubt, add another element to interactions - for example, when a button changes colour on hover, also underline the text.
Conclusion
Whether or not you fall under the EAA or think you don’t have many users with disabilities in your target market (I doubt anyone knows for sure), it’s important to make your site accessible, even just meeting basic standards, to help make the internet a more accessible place for all.
Want to know more or need help with your project?
Get in touch with me by clicking here.