Part 1 of the Digital Accessibility in Practice: Moving Beyond Compliance series features everyday practice to bridge the gap between compliance and accessibility.
Digital accessibility refers to the practice of designing digital content that can be accessed and used by people with a wide range of abilities. Digital content includes documents, websites, tools, and media. Those who rely on assistive technologies such as screen readers, keyboard navigation, captions, or voice recognition software need this accessibility. At its core, accessibility ensures that information is perceivable, understandable, and usable by as many people as possible.
The more one works with digital accessibility, it becomes clear that it is a thoughtful, nuanced, and continually evolving discipline. Shaping how information is created, structured, and shared. Embedding accessibility in how we communicate through digital media requires shifting focus. From meeting minimum standards to considering accessibility from the very beginning.
While tools such as Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and PDF software include robust accessibility features, they often go unutilized. Especially because those features are largely and rarely part of standard content-creation habits and are therefore easy to overlook.
Designing for Sighted Users Is Not Designing for Everyone
Several commonly used design choices often prioritize users who can visually interpret content and navigate with a mouse. Design choices include icons or emojis, color-coding information, splitting or merging tables. Moreover, enhanced layouts with complex graphics without a description in the body of text. What is less frequently considered is how this same content is experienced by someone using a screen reader, navigating exclusively by keyboard, or accessing content with low vision, color blindness, cognitive disabilities, or limited motor control.
Content that appears polished and visually engaging can still present significant challenges depending on how it is structured and navigated. Design choices that rely heavily on visual cues or mouse-based interaction may limit access for users who rely on assistive technologies. Common examples include:
• Images, charts, or icons without meaningful alternative (alt) text
• Headings that are visually styled but lack a logical structural hierarchy
• Tables that use merged or split cells, disrupting reading order
• Information conveyed through color alone, without supporting text or symbols
• Forms or interactive elements that cannot be completed using a keyboard alone
For individuals using screen readers, keyboard navigation, or other assistive tools, these factors directly influence whether content is understandable and usable.
Common structural and interaction barriers
Beyond individual design elements, digital accessibility challenges also arise from how content is written, organized, presented and programmed. Frequently observed issues across digital platforms include:
• Dense language, long sentences, and unexplained technical or institutional jargon
• Poor color contrast affecting users with low vision or color blindness
• Inconsistent or illogical use of heading levels, disrupting navigation
• Improperly tagged graphics or diagrams created in design tools
• Lack of visible focus indicators to show where a user is on a page
• Tasks or time-based interactions that do not allow sufficient flexibility or adjustment
At WSB, our work to address accessibility for digital communications is already underway. We are supporting our partners and clients through document accessibility reviews, remediation, and guidance on building accessibility into everyday document and web content creation.
Follow along our new series, Digital Accessibility in Practice: Moving Beyond Compliance as we explore practical steps to make digital spaces truly inclusive. Part 2 of this series will focus on practical ways organizations can address these challenges by embedding accessibility into everyday content creation and workflows.
