Best practices

The most frequent accessibility mistakes

Contrast, missing alternatives, unlabelled forms: the problems found almost everywhere, and how to fix them.

A few problems show up in the vast majority of audits. Good news: they are also the simplest to fix, and fixing them quickly improves the score.

Insufficient contrast

Light grey text on a white background, buttons with colours too close to the background. Fix: adjust colours to reach a ratio of at least 4.5 to 1 on body text.

Images without text alternatives

An informative image without an alt attribute deprives screen readers of that information. Fix: describe the image concisely, or mark it as decorative if it carries no information.

Forms without labels

A field without an associated label is hard for assistive technology to understand. Fix: associate a clear label with each field and make error messages explicit.

Broken keyboard navigation

Elements not reachable by keyboard, an invisible focus, an illogical tab order. Fix: test the whole page without a mouse and make the focus clearly visible.

Missing page title and structure

A missing page title or an inconsistent heading hierarchy makes orientation harder. Fix: a unique, relevant title per page, and heading levels in order.