A web that leaves no one out.
Overview
About one in five people lives with some form of impairment — of sight, hearing, movement or cognition. An accessible website is simply one they can use too: read it with a screen reader, operate it with a keyboard, and understand it without effort. is the international measure of that, and since 2025 it is no longer optional for businesses selling goods and services into the European Economic Area.
Four principles
Perceivable, operable, understandable and robust
Perceivable
Everyone must be able to perceive the content. Images get descriptive text alternatives (alt text), videos get captions, and colour contrast is strong enough that text stays legible in bright sunlight or for people who distinguish colours poorly.
Operable
Everything can be operated with the keyboard alone, not just a mouse. Focus is clearly visible as you move through with TAB, buttons and links are large enough to hit, and nothing flashes or moves in a way that causes discomfort.
Understandable
Text is in plain language, headings follow a logical order, and forms say clearly what went wrong and how to fix it. The site behaves predictably, so the user never has to guess.
Robust
The foundation is clean, semantic that screen readers and other assistive technology can read flawlessly — today and in ten years. It is exactly the same foundation search engines rely on.
Who benefits
Far more people than you think
Permanent disability
Blind and low-vision people who rely on a screen reader, deaf people who need captions, and people who cannot use a mouse. For them accessibility is not a convenience but the precondition for getting in at all.
Getting older
Sight dims, hearing fades and fine motor control grows less precise with age. Larger tap targets, strong contrast and clear type serve an ever-growing group of older users.
Situational limits
Bright sun on a phone screen, a loud bus with no headphones, an arm in a sling or a child in the other hand. Almost all of us regularly hit situations that make a site inaccessible for a while.
Everyone else
Clear structure, fast pages and keyboard control make the site better for everyone — including those with no impairment at all. Good accessible design is simply good design.
The law
Since 2025 this is a legal duty, not a choice.
The European Accessibility Act came into force on 28 June 2025. It requires that digital products and services — online shops, banking, e-services and more — sold to consumers in the EEA meet accessibility requirements based on , through the European standard EN 301 549.
Iceland is part of the European Economic Area and transposes these rules into Icelandic law. Public bodies have already had to meet accessibility requirements for websites and apps under an earlier directive, and the Accessibility Act extends the same expectations to the private sector in stages.
The smallest companies (under ten employees and annual turnover below two million euros) get limited exemptions for services, but most businesses selling online fall within scope. Penalties are set by each country and can be substantial.
We are not a law firm and this is not a substitute for legal advice. But we build sites that meet from the ground up, so you stay on the right side of the line.
Search and Google
Accessibility and search optimisation are the same craft.
It is a widespread misconception that Google directly demotes or promotes sites in its results by their score. It does not — accessibility is not a formal ranking factor. But the truth is more interesting than the myth.
Almost everything that makes a site accessible also makes it more visible in search. Semantic and logical headings help both a screen reader and a search engine understand the page. Alt text puts images into image search. Captions and transcripts make video searchable. Descriptive link text, fast pages and good mobile performance are both accessibility concerns and, at the same time, direct signals Google weighs as part of a page's user experience (page experience).
That is why accessible sites repeatedly measure more organic traffic, longer visits and lower bounce rates. Not because Google introduced a new rule, but because accessibility and good grow from the same root: a site that is clear, fast and understandable — for people and machines alike.
How we work
Accessibility from the first line of code
Semantic HTML
We build on the right elements — buttons are buttons, headings nest logically — so assistive technology gets the correct meaning without workarounds.
Keyboard and focus
Everything works from the keyboard, focus is always clearly visible, and a dedicated skip link that jumps straight to the main content shortens the path for screen-reader users.
Contrast and type
We test colour combinations against the AA threshold (4.5:1 for text) and let type scale up without the layout breaking.
Text alternatives and captions
Images get descriptive alt text, purely decorative elements are hidden from screen readers, and video content gets captions.
Forms that guide
Fields have labels, error messages are clear and tied to the right field, and nothing relies on colour alone to carry meaning.
Tested with real technology
We test with a keyboard, a screen reader and automated accessibility checks — not just in a design file but in the browser as people actually use it.
See also
Next
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