Accessibility is very important. If you make a site or application accessible then it means anyone can use it on any device.

An inaccessible site may prevent users with certain requirements from using your site. For example if you just put everyone up as an image (with no alternative text) screen readers would not be able to dictate the content to blind users.

When is the best time to make your site accessible?

The best time is now! The sooner you start to make your site or application accessible, the easier it gets!

But I know in the real world we all inherit large and old code bases where maybe people didn’t consider accessibility as a requirement.

How can I make an inaccessible site accessible?

I think the best way is to be realistic - figure out the most important things that people do on your site. For example for an ecommerce site its going to be looking at products, adding them to your basket, and payment. Make sure that those flows are usable with just a keyboard. If you can manage to do that, you’re probably on the right way to making it quite accessible.

I wouldn’t worry about every single feature being accessible. For example updating a profile photo is probably not the killer feature that you should worry about at first.

(Don’t get me wrong - I think every feature and part of a site should really be accessible. But we don’t have unlimited hours in the day…)

Start off over at our a11y checklist, and go through those items. Most have quite quick fixes that you should focus on.