Here's a number that should make every business owner and marketing leader sit up: 1 in 6 people in Ireland lives with a disability. That's over 700,000 people, and when you include their families, carers, and close networks, the audience grows considerably larger.
Now ask yourself honestly: could every single one of those people use your website without frustration? In most cases, the answer is no. Not because anyone intended to exclude them, but because accessibility gaps tend to be invisible to those who aren't affected by them.
The good news? Many of the most impactful fixes are also the quickest. You don't need to understand code to spot these issues or to ask your team to fix them. You just need to know what to look for.
Below are ten things that WCAG 2.2 AA requires, explained in plain English. For each one, I'll tell you what it means, what to ask your team, and what you're missing out on if it's not sorted.
A note on the legal context in Ireland
The European Accessibility Act (EAA) comes into full effect in Ireland on 28 June 2025. It requires that a wide range of products and services, including websites and apps, meet accessibility standards. This isn't a future concern. If your business isn't already working towards compliance, the deadline is closer than you think. The National Disability Authority (NDA) is Ireland's key resource for guidance, and WCAG 2.2 AA is the standard you'll need to meet.
What is WCAG 2.2 AA?
WCAG stands for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. It's the international rulebook for making websites usable by everyone, including people with visual, hearing, motor, and cognitive differences. The "AA" level is the standard most organisations aim for, and with the EAA now in force across the EU, it carries real legal weight in Ireland. Think of it less as a compliance checkbox and more as a quality standard for your digital front door.
01. Your Text is Too Light to Read
Imagine trying to read grey text on a white background on a bright day in Grafton Street. For people with low vision, colour blindness, or even just tired eyes, that's what a lot of websites feel like every day. WCAG sets a minimum level of contrast between text colour and background colour to ensure text is legible for the widest possible audience.
What to ask your team: "Can you run a contrast check across our site, especially on body text, buttons, and form fields? Anything that fails the 4.5:1 ratio needs to be adjusted."
What you're missing out on: Users with visual impairments will leave before they even read your offer. Low contrast also makes your site harder to use on mobile in daylight, affecting everyone, not just those with disabilities.
02. People Can't See Where They Are on the Page
Many people can't use a mouse. They navigate websites using only a keyboard, or a switch device. As they move through a page, there should always be a visible highlight showing which button or link is currently selected. On most websites, this highlight has been deliberately removed because designers thought it looked untidy. WCAG 2.2 now has stronger rules requiring it to be clearly visible.
What to ask your team: "Can someone navigate our entire website using only the Tab key on a keyboard? Can they always see clearly which element they're on?" If not, this needs fixing.
What you're missing out on: Keyboard-only users, including many people with motor disabilities and power users who prefer shortcuts, will be unable to complete key actions like filling in forms, clicking CTAs, or checking out. You're losing conversions without ever knowing it.
03. Your Images Are Silent to Some Users
Screen readers — the software used by blind and visually impaired users to browse the web — read out the content of a page aloud. When they reach an image, they read the image's "alternative text" or alt text, which is a brief description added behind the scenes. If it's missing, users hear something useless like "image3847.jpg". If it's vague, they hear "photo" or "banner". Neither tells them anything useful.
What to ask your team: "Do all our images have meaningful alt text? Does the alt text describe what the image communicates, not just what it looks like? And do decorative images have empty alt text so screen readers skip them?"
What you're missing out on: Good alt text is also read by search engines. Missing or poor alt text is a double loss. You're excluding users and losing SEO value from your images at the same time.
04. Your Page Has No Logical Reading Order
Think of headings like a newspaper. There's a main headline, then section headers, then sub-sections. Screen reader users navigate pages by jumping between headings. It's how they skim content without reading every word. When headings are missing, the wrong size, or out of order, it's like a newspaper with no headlines. Users are lost before they start.
What to ask your team: "Does every page have exactly one main heading? Do the subheadings follow a logical order, with main sections and then sub-sections, without any gaps? Are headings ever used just to make text look bigger, rather than to organise content?"
What you're missing out on: Broken heading structure also affects your Google ranking. Search engines use headings to understand page structure. Fixing this is one of the rare cases where an accessibility improvement also directly supports your SEO.
05. Your Forms Are Confusing (And You're Losing Sign-Ups)
Placeholder text is the light grey hint text that appears inside a form field before you type, like "Enter your email". The problem is that it disappears the moment someone clicks into the field. For users with memory difficulties, ADHD, or cognitive differences, losing that context mid-form is disorienting and frustrating. Labels — which are the text that sits permanently above or beside a field — should never be replaced by placeholder text alone.
What to ask your team: "On all our forms, including contact forms, sign-up forms, and checkout, does every single field have a label that stays visible even after someone starts typing? Is placeholder text being used as a substitute for proper labels anywhere?"
What you're missing out on: Form abandonment. Every confusing or inaccessible form field is a dropped lead, a lost purchase, or a frustrated customer. Fixing this improves conversion rates for all users, not just those with disabilities.
Open your website and try to complete a key task using only your keyboard — no mouse or trackpad. Tab moves forward, Shift+Tab moves back, Enter clicks. Can you do it? If you get stuck, that's a real accessibility barrier that's costing you users right now.
06. Some Features Only Work by Dragging
Sliders, swipeable carousels, drag-to-reorder lists. These are common website features that require a precise dragging motion. For people with limited hand mobility, or anyone using a keyboard or switch device, dragging is difficult or impossible. WCAG 2.2 now explicitly requires that anything you can drag must also have a simpler click or tap alternative.
What to ask your team: "Do we have any features on the site that require dragging? Price range sliders, image carousels, sortable lists? If yes, is there a button-based alternative that achieves the same result?"
What you're missing out on: If your pricing tool, product filter, or booking interface relies on a drag interaction without an alternative, a significant portion of users simply cannot use it. That's a lost conversion you'll never see, because they'll leave without explaining why.
07. Keyboard Users Must Wade Through Your Navigation Every Single Time
Every time a keyboard user loads a new page, they have to tab through your logo, every navigation link, and every header element before they reach the actual content. It's the equivalent of having to walk through the full entrance lobby every time you move between rooms. A "skip link" is a hidden shortcut that appears when keyboard users start navigating, letting them jump straight to the main content.
What to ask your team: "Do we have a 'skip to main content' link that appears when someone presses Tab for the first time on any page? This is a small addition but it makes a significant difference to keyboard users."
What you're missing out on: Without this, keyboard users face a frustrating experience on every single page load. It's one of the fastest fixes available. A developer can add it in minutes, and the impact is disproportionately large.
08. Your Videos Have No Captions
Captions are the text version of everything spoken and heard in a video, including dialogue, important sound effects, and speaker identification. WCAG requires accurate captions for all pre-recorded video content. Auto-generated captions are a helpful starting point but are frequently inaccurate, especially for Irish accents, place names, and industry-specific terms. They need human review before they can be considered compliant.
What to ask your team: "Do all videos on our website have accurate, reviewed captions? Are they easy to turn on? Have they actually been checked, or are they raw auto-generated text that's never been corrected?"
What you're missing out on: The majority of social video is watched without sound. Captions don't just help deaf and hard-of-hearing users. They increase watch time and comprehension for everyone. Uncaptioned video is leaving reach and engagement on the table, in addition to failing accessibility standards.
09. Your Login Process Is a Barrier
CAPTCHAs — those "prove you're human" puzzles where you identify traffic lights or type distorted letters — are genuinely difficult for many people with visual impairments, dyslexia, cognitive disabilities, or anxiety. WCAG 2.2 introduced a new requirement: if you use a cognitive test to verify users, you must offer an accessible alternative. You cannot lock people out of your service because they can't read a blurry word.
What to ask your team: "Does our login, sign-up, or checkout process include a CAPTCHA? If yes, what alternative do we offer for people who can't complete it? Could we replace it with a less intrusive verification method altogether?"
What you're missing out on: CAPTCHAs frustrate everyone, not just people with disabilities. Research consistently shows they increase drop-off rates at sign-up and checkout. Removing or replacing them can lift conversion rates across your entire audience.
10. Interactive Elements Don't Behave as Expected
When a website is built using proper, standardised building blocks, browsers and assistive technologies automatically know how to handle them. Screen readers announce elements correctly. Keyboards can operate them by default. But when developers build custom components that look like buttons or menus but aren't properly coded underneath, all of that breaks down.
What to ask your team: "Can you run a free automated accessibility audit using a tool like Axe or WAVE and walk me through what it finds? Are our interactive components, including dropdowns, pop-ups, and custom buttons, properly labelled for screen readers?"
What you're missing out on: This is often the root cause of the most serious accessibility failures. It is also far cheaper to get right during development than to fix afterwards. If you are commissioning new web work, ask for accessibility compliance as a condition of sign-off, not an afterthought.
The Bottom Line: Accessibility is a Business Decision, Not Just a Compliance One
Every item on this list represents a real group of real people who may be trying, and failing, to use your website right now. They're not complaining. They're just leaving. Quietly. And going to a competitor whose site works for them.
With the European Accessibility Act now in force, Irish businesses have both a legal obligation and a genuine commercial opportunity. Organisations that invest in accessibility don't just reduce their legal exposure. They open their doors to a wider audience, build loyalty with an underserved market, and consistently find that improvements made for people with disabilities make the experience better for everyone.
Better contrast helps anyone reading on a phone outdoors. Clear form labels reduce errors for every user. Skip links help keyboard power users who have no disability at all.
You don't need to become an expert. You just need to start asking the right questions. The fixes exist. The standard is clear. The deadline has passed. The only question left is: who is your website actually for?