The Web is for Everyone: The European Accessibility Act & Digital Inclusion

Digital Accessibility is More Important than Ever. Why Should Brands Care About It?

Firstly, the European Accessibility Act (EAA), adopted in 2019 and taking effect on the 28th of June 2025, is a landmark piece of legislation that aims to make the digital world more accessible for persons with disabilities. It sets out a common set of accessibility requirements for a wide range of products and services, including websites, mobile applications, and self-service terminals.

The European Accessibility Act (EAA) fines for non-compliance can range from €5,000 to €20,000 per violation. However, fines can be as high as 5% of a company's annual global turnover.

Factors affecting fines:

• Severity of breach: The more serious the breach, the higher the fine
• Size and type of organization: Larger organizations may face steeper penalties
• Daily penalties: If non-compliance continues, daily penalties may apply

It’s worth pointing out that we won’t know how the different EU jurisdictions will interpret the guidelines within the law and how they will enforce it. Good advice would be to reach what is generally considered to be industry standard and then monitor how the law is interpreted and enforced after June 28th.

Secondly, there’s a big audience out there, for example:

• 3% (15 million people in the EU) of the population have some form of sight loss
• 10% of the population have dyslexia
• 20% of people over 65 have mild cognitive impairment, 7% have dementia
• Millions of people use websites on moving trains, at night, or impaired by alcohol

This is a massive cohort of potential customers! Additionally, improving accessibility is usually good for SEO and can often improve site speed.

Thirdly and perhaps most importantly, it’s the right thing to do.

What Does Compliance Mean?

Central to the EAA is the adoption of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 as the technical standard for accessibility. WCAG 2.1 is a set of internationally recognized guidelines that provide detailed instructions on how to make web content accessible to people with a wide range of disabilities, including visual, auditory, cognitive, and motor impairments.

WCAG Levels Explained

WCAG 2.1 defines three levels of accessibility: A, AA, and AAA. Each level builds on the previous one, with AAA being the most stringent. Both European and global brands (brands selling in the EU) should aim for the AA level at a minimum.

• Level A: Level A is the basic level of accessibility and includes requirements such as providing alternative text for images, ensuring that links are distinguishable from surrounding text, and using headings and landmarks to structure content
• Level AA: Level AA includes all of the requirements at level A, plus additional requirements such as providing captions for videos, transcripts for audio content, and ensuring that all interactive elements are accessible by keyboard
• Level AAA: Level AAA includes all of the requirements at levels A and AA, plus additional requirements such as providing sign language interpretations for videos and transcripts for live audio content

How Ready are Brands for EAA?

We tested 36 Health & Beauty website homepages, looking for WCAG violations at the 2.0, 2.1 & 3.0 standards, at A, AA & AAA levels.

• All 36 failed EAA acceptance criteria (WCAG 2.1 AA)
• Average of 6 issues per site homepage
• The most common issue (all sites) is low colour contrast text
• Two thirds of homepages had links with no text, making navigation difficult for those using screen readers
• Homepages don’t usually have the most challenging accessibility needs, compared to form-heavy pages like checkout. Despite this, all sites failed.

Suggestions for Reaching Compliance

• Simpler is usually better. The more complex your site, the more there is to go wrong. This can also often be better for the user experience and conversion rate.
• Nothing beats well structured content and HTML. Sites that are built from well formed HTML, not reliant on JavaScript for construction, will be 90% accessible by default. They are also usually faster and have better SEO. Avoid ARIA unless absolutely necessary, too many sites use it as a badly placed sticking plaster.
• Avoid accessibility plugins if at all possible. There are many questions around their efficacy, and they don’t make up for a well structured site.
• Accessibility issues don’t just come from the site structure or its design, content creation on the site is a common source of usability issues. Awareness of accessibility needs to be raised within ecommerce teams, as well as training given.
• Sites need to be regularly audited. A full site audit is a great place to start, however you need to put processes in place to check your site on a more regular basis due to site content changes

The European Accessibility Act is a major step forward in ensuring that people with disabilities have equal access to the digital world. By adopting WCAG 2.1 as the technical standard for accessibility, the EAA provides a clear and consistent framework for organizations to follow. This will help to create a more inclusive digital environment for everyone.

However, many brands have a lot of work to do on their sites between now and the 28th of June. Astound can help you get ready. Reach out today to schedule an audit of your site, where one of our experts can identify areas for improvement before the new guidelines go into effect.

*Not a substitute for Legal advice.