Why Accessibility Matters

An accessible website isn’t just a “nice to have” — it’s essential. For many people, especially those with visual, motor, or cognitive differences, small website barriers can mean the difference between accessing your services… or not.

By making a few thoughtful improvements, you can open up your site to more people, improve usability for everyone, and even support your SEO.

1. Use Clear, Readable Fonts

Three things: avoid overly decorative or thin fonts, stick to easy-to-read options like Arial, Lato, or Open Sans and make sure text is at least 16px for body content..

2. Check Your Colour Contrast

Text needs to stand out from the background — especially for users with low vision or colour blindness.

Aim for strong contrast (e.g. dark grey on white) and avoid light text on light backgrounds.

Bonus: Use this free tool to test your contrast

3. Add Keyboard Navigation

Can you tab through your website using just your keyboard? If not, people who rely on assistive tech might be stuck. Make sure forms, menus, and links are reachable without a mouse.

Use clear anchor text like "read about our youth mentoring programme" instead of just "click here".

4. Use Headings to Organise Content

Use real heading tags (H1, H2, H3…) — not just bold text. Screen readers use these to help users navigate your pages quickly..

5. Describe Your Links Clearly

Avoid generic links like “click here” or “read more”. Instead, describe where the link goes:

• ✔ “Download our volunteer guide (PDF)”
• ✔ “Read more about our food bank services”

This helps all users — especially those using screen readers or scanning quickly.

Coming Up on Tuesday

Next time, we’ll explore more details about what we've been working on this - we don't usually share what we're doing in these emails, but big things are coming!