A website you own should be a website everyone can use. This page explains what that means, why it matters, and what is actually done about it here.
Last updated: September 2026.
What accessibility means
An accessible website is one that works for people who don’t browse the way a designer imagines. Someone who cannot see the screen and hears the page read aloud. Someone who cannot use a mouse and moves through a page with the Tab key. Someone who enlarges the text to twice its size, or who reads on a phone in bright sunlight, or who finds moving elements physically unpleasant. Someone who is tired, in a hurry, or reading in their second language.
None of that is exotic. It is simply the range of people who visit any website — and most of them will never tell you that they gave up, they will just leave.
Why it matters
Because people are not optional. Roughly one person in six lives with some form of disability, and far more of us are affected temporarily: a broken arm, an eye infection, a noisy train. Making a page work for them is not charity; it is the job.
Because it makes the site better for everyone. Readable type, real headings, enough contrast, a page that doesn’t jump around — those are the same things that make a website pleasant at seven in the evening on a small screen. Accessibility is largely good design, written down.
Because machines read pages too. A search engine and an AI assistant navigate a page much like a screen reader does: by its structure, its headings, its link texts, its image descriptions. A site built to be understood by a screen reader is, almost for free, a site that gets found and quoted correctly.
And because it is increasingly the law. The European Accessibility Act has applied since June 2025, and it obliges a growing number of organisations to meet a recognised standard. As a one-person business I am not required to publish a statement like this one. I would rather be held to it anyway.
What this site does
The aim is the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 at level AA — the standard the European rules point to. In practice, that means the following.
It works with a keyboard. Everything can be reached and operated with Tab and Enter, in a sensible order, and whatever has focus is clearly marked — no invisible cursor wandering around the page.
It is readable. The body text is set in Atkinson Hyperlegible, a typeface designed for people with low vision, at a comfortable size. Text and background contrast at AA level or better. You can enlarge the text to 200% without anything breaking or overlapping, and nothing is explained by colour alone.
It is structured. Real headings in a logical order, one clear main heading per page, lists that are lists, links whose text says where they go, images with a description when they carry meaning and an empty one when they are decoration. Switch the styling off and the page still reads correctly, top to bottom.
It stays still when asked. Content that slides in as you scroll stops moving entirely when your system is set to “reduce motion”. Nothing flashes, nothing plays by itself, nothing moves that you did not ask to move.
It doesn’t get in your way. No cookie banner, no pop-up, no newsletter overlay, no CAPTCHA, no countdown. There is nothing here to dismiss before you can read.
It is written in plain language. Short sentences, no jargon where an ordinary word will do. If a page here is hard to understand, I consider that a bug in the same way a broken link is a bug.
How it works for the sites I build
Every website I build starts from the same foundation as this one, so the things above are not an extra you pay for — they are the default you would have to ask me to remove. No plugins that inject inaccessible widgets, no page builder that turns headings into decorated text, no third-party scripts that hijack the keyboard. Structure and words come first, decoration after.
Where a client’s own content is involved, I help rather than hide it: I explain how to write a useful image description, why a heading is not just big text, and what to do with a PDF that nobody can read. And when I review an existing website, accessibility is part of the report, in plain language, with the fixes ranked by what they are worth.
Where it falls short
This is a statement of intent backed by real work, not a certificate. This site has been checked with a keyboard and with browser zoom; a full round of testing with screen readers is still on my list, and I will say so here when it is done. Decorative drawings carry an empty text alternative on purpose, so a screen reader skips them. Older sites I built years ago do not all meet the standard I hold myself to today; they get there as they are revised.
Tell me
If something here is unreadable, unreachable or simply annoying, email hello@alligatordesign.net and tell me what happened and what you were using. It is more likely to be my oversight than your device. Fixes for accessibility problems go ahead of everything else in my queue.