Fix: Accessibility

2-4 hr Impact: medium Effort: medium ✓ Scan-verified — no manual checkbox

Accessibility issues — missing alt text, poor color contrast, unlabeled form fields, keyboard-inaccessible navigation — exclude real users who rely on screen readers or keyboard navigation, and increasingly factor into legal compliance requirements (ADA, WCAG) that carry genuine liability risk.

Google's Lighthouse grades accessibility — alt text, contrast, labels, ARIA. Accessible sites rank better, reach more users, and reduce legal exposure (ADA).

The full picture

Accessibility issues extend well beyond the specific alt-text concern discussed elsewhere, encompassing a broader range of genuine barriers that can prevent visitors with various disabilities from fully accessing and using your site — this represents both a genuine ethical consideration and, in many jurisdictions, an actual legal compliance requirement.

The specific accessibility issues this check evaluates typically include factors like sufficient color contrast for visitors with visual impairments, proper semantic HTML structure that assistive technologies can correctly interpret, keyboard navigability for visitors who cannot use a mouse, and various other technical implementation details that affect whether your site genuinely works for the full range of your potential audience.

Beyond the direct accessibility benefit to affected visitors, genuine accessibility improvements frequently correlate with broader site quality and usability improvements that benefit all visitors — semantic, well-structured HTML tends to be more maintainable and more clearly understood by search engines as well, meaning accessibility work often provides compounding benefits beyond its primary purpose.

Addressing accessibility issues comprehensively typically requires genuine, systematic review against established accessibility guidelines rather than addressing issues piecemeal as they're individually noticed — this systematic approach ensures genuine, comprehensive coverage rather than an incomplete patchwork of fixes that leaves other real barriers unaddressed.

How to fix it

1

Run an automated accessibility audit

Catches a meaningful subset of issues automatically — missing alt text, insufficient color contrast, missing form labels.
2

Fix color contrast issues

Text needs sufficient contrast against its background — light gray text on white is a common, easy-to-miss failure.
3

Add labels to every form field

Every input needs an associated <label>, not just a placeholder — placeholders disappear on focus and aren't reliably read by screen readers.
4

Test keyboard navigation

Tab through your entire site using only the keyboard — every interactive element should be reachable and show a visible focus state.

Common mistakes

Automated tools catch maybe a third of real accessibility issues — genuine screen-reader testing or a manual keyboard-only pass catches problems automated scanners structurally cannot detect.