We make a popup tool and the EAA almost broke our roadmap. A few honest notes on a11y.
Accessibility went on our roadmap ahead of the European Accessibility Act and we've shipped a solid chunk of WCAG 2.1 AA work since. Posting because most a11y advice online is either lawyer-speak or "install this overlay widget" (please don't - more on that below).
Quick framing for anyone not deep in this: accessibility (a11y) means your site works for people who don't navigate it the way you do – screen reader users, keyboard-only, low vision, color blindness, motor or cognitive differences. WCAG is the spec. AA is the level every law in practice points to. AAA exists, you'll rarely see it as a target outside of government work because the constraints get really tight (e.g. content readable at lower-secondary reading level).
Stuff that surprised us:
There is no official accessibility certificate. A few vendors sell "certified accessible" badges and it is pure marketing. What actually exists is WCAG conformance, declared in an accessibility statement, optionally backed by a third-party audit (VPAT/ACR). If someone is selling you certification, walk.
Microenterprises (<10 employees, <€2M turnover) are technically EAA-exempt. We are one. We're doing the work anyway, partly because the SEO and conversion side of a11y is real – semantic HTML, contrast, focus management, alt text all make your site rank and convert better – and partly because you outgrow microenterprise status faster than you think.
The metrics that matter when you audit: contrast (4.5:1 body / 3:1 large), keyboard navigation (close your mouse, hit Tab through your own site, prepare to feel bad), screen reader pass (NVDA on Windows is free, VoiceOver on Mac is built in – try both, they behave differently), visible focus rings (stop removing them in CSS, I'm begging), form labels properly associated (placeholder-as-label is broken because the label disappears the moment someone types), alt text on meaningful images. Automated tools (Lighthouse, axe, WAVE) catch maybe a third of real issues. The rest is manual.
Now the awkward part. Third-party widgets – popups, chatbots, forms, review carousels – are where most accessible sites die. They inject DOM after page load, trap focus, break tab order, hijack screen reader announcements. We are one of those third-party widgets, so this is uncomfortable to admit. And those "AI accessibility overlay" badges you see ads for? Every major a11y advocate has come out against them. There are active class actions. They make things worse, not better.
Curious – anyone running into popup/chat/form vendors that actually take this seriously? Looking for examples to point to.