Are you ready for EAA 2025?
We look at what the new regulations might mean for website accessibility
What is website accessibility and why is it important? We’re glad you asked. When many people think about website design, they often think about what it looks like and perhaps how users might navigate or experience it. But what about users with disabilities? Do they see your website in the same way?
Accessibility on the web has always been important. For those of us in the UK, it was the Disability Discrimination Act of 1995 which first introduced the concept, and more recently, it’s The Equality Act 2010 that requires websites to be accessible to all users, including those with disabilities.
And now we’ll have to conform with the European Accessibility Act 2025 which enforces Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 across the EU from the end of June 2025.
What is website accessibility?
We covered a little on this subject following the State of the Browser conference, 2024.
As an example, if a website visitor has poor sight, they may use a piece of software known as a screen reader – otherwise known as Assistive Technology – to play the web page aloud, allowing them to listen to the words rather than read them.
It’s important for that web page to be coded to an agreed set of standards for the screen reader software to function correctly. It’s not all about vision though; accessibility includes accommodating users who might have visual, motor, hearing, cognitive or learning impairments. So the website should also be navigable with a keyboard, and ideally follow some basic conventions to ensure it’s intuitive and clearly sign-posted.
(editors note: Pete picked up his first pair of glasses this week and he’s not sure how he feels about it yet)
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) produces a set of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG… still following?) which are designed to make content more accessible to all users, particularly those with disabilities. Think of it like a widely recognised standard for what makes a website accessible, or not.
From a development and testing perspective, it gets a little complicated, with three primary levels of conformance, A, AA and AAA. There are also different versions of the guidelines, with WCAG 2.2 being more advanced than WCAG 2.1.
The guidelines cover various principles and success criteria, and it’s not entirely about the underlying markup or code compliance, either.
For example, when it comes to design we need to avoid low contrast areas to make text easy to read for everyone, including those who might be colourblind, and images should have alt-text descriptions ensuring screen readers can interpret and explain the image.
Thankfully there are various testing tools available, like the WAVE web accessibility evaluation tool to help us check the sites we build and ensure they meet the required guidelines. WAVE helps us check against the most relevant Level A and Level AA success criteria from WCAG 2.0, 2.1 and 2.2.
Why not level AAA? Well, the more conformant your web page, the more restricted you are when it comes to design, layout and various elements of the modern web. Being AAA compliant isn’t necessarily the goal, instead we aim to deliver great looking sites which take accessibility into account, with as few compromises as possible to arrive at a happy medium.
Introducing the European Accessibility Act 2025
The European Commission recently announced a new set of regulations coming into force at the end of June called the European Accessibility Act, designed to ensure a wide variety of digital services are more inclusive including websites, e-commerce and e-banking, ticketing systems, ATMs and more.
In short, all EU businesses with have to update the accessibility of their website and digital products to meet the standards set out by the EAA 2025. Interestingly, the UK government has yet to announce a version of the EAA 2025 into local law, but if GDPR is anything to go by we can expect the UK to follow the EU’s lead soon enough.
While the regulations might be EU focused and not UK specific, any business with visitors from the EU will still need to consider compliance to avoid falling foul.
Thankfully, when it comes to websites and digital services, the EAA 2025 enforces WCAG 2.1 specifically, something we’ve already been working with for some time.
Although there’s nothing to suggest we shouldn’t go further and incorporate WCAG 2.2 to rise above what’s considered a mandated ‘bare minimum’. It’s something we’re always looking at to ensure we improve our output and stay ahead of the curve.
In summary, the new regulations are aimed at increasing accessibility of an inter-connected digital world and they shine a light on the importance of considering things like accessibility when designing and producing websites, especially if you are a public company looking to communicate with global investor audiences.
Try running your website through one of the free testing tools available like WAVE or the Accessibility Checker to see how compliant it is. If you’re considering a new website and would like to work with a passionate team of technologists who take regulatory compliance into account, drop us a line to see how we can help!