How to Meet WCAG Standards in Web Design

Web accessibility isn’t just a nice-to-have anymore it’s a legal requirement, a competitive advantage, and frankly, the right thing to do. Yet despite widespread awareness of WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines), many B2B organizations struggle to implement these standards effectively across their digital products.

If you’re a CTO, product owner, or digital leader evaluating accessibility compliance for your websites, custom software, or eLearning platforms, you’re likely facing a common challenge: understanding what WCAG actually requires, who’s responsible for what, and how to maintain standards throughout your development lifecycle.

This guide breaks down the practical realities of WCAG compliance in web design from the foundational principles to the cross-functional coordination required to deliver truly accessible digital experiences.

Understanding WCAG: Beyond Color Contrast and Font Sizes

Most teams start their accessibility journey with the obvious fixes: adjusting color contrast ratios, increasing font sizes, and adding alt text to images. While these visual improvements matter, they represent just the tip of the accessibility iceberg.

WCAG 2.1 organizes accessibility requirements around four key principles:

• Perceivable: Information must be presentable in ways users can perceive (visual, auditory, or tactile)
• Operable: Interface components must be operable by all users, including those using keyboards or assistive technologies
• Understandable: Information and UI operation must be understandable to users with varying cognitive abilities
• Robust: Content must be robust enough to work with diverse assistive technologies

The gap between basic visual fixes and comprehensive compliance becomes apparent when you consider users with cognitive, motor, or perceptual needs. Research confirms that a visually compliant interface that requires complex mouse interactions, loads users with cognitive overhead, or breaks screen reader navigation fails the broader accessibility test. These failures violate core WCAG principles that require interfaces to work across all input methods and assistive technologies.

Real accessibility compliance requires understanding how different user groups interact with your digital products and designing systems that work across the full spectrum of abilities and technologies. Multiple accessibility organizations confirm that approximately 70% of screen reader users prefer to navigate by headings, making these structural decisions fundamental to the user experience.

What the research says

• WCAG 2.1 standards are built on four evidence-based principles (Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, Robust) that address accessibility needs across visual, auditory, physical, speech, cognitive, and neurological disabilities.
• Screen reader users rely heavily on semantic HTML structure for navigation, with roughly 70% preferring to navigate content by headings rather than other methods.
• Keyboard operability requirements in WCAG mandate that all web functionality must be accessible via keyboard without specific timing requirements, making structural design planning essential.
• Research shows that integrating accessibility throughout the development process is significantly more effective than treating it as a final audit step, which consistently leads to missed accessibility barriers.
• Early evidence suggests that heading hierarchies and navigation patterns require semantic HTML markup that must be built into page structure from the beginning retrofitting these elements creates cognitive confusion for assistive technology users.

The Reality of Roles and Responsibilities

One of the biggest misconceptions about WCAG compliance is that it’s primarily a designer’s responsibility. In reality, accessible web experiences emerge from coordinated efforts across multiple roles, each handling different aspects of the guidelines.

This distribution of responsibility creates both opportunities and risks. When teams understand their specific accessibility roles, they can build compliance into their normal workflows. However, when accessibility is treated as someone else’s job or relegated to a final review step, critical issues slip through.

Many organizations discover that roughly 90% of WCAG compliance happens in code implementation, while designers influence key structural and visual decisions that either enable or constrain accessible development. This means your UX and UI design processes must be aligned with development capabilities and accessibility requirements from the start.

Keyboard Operability: The Most Overlooked Requirement

If there’s one area where web teams consistently underestimate WCAG requirements, it’s keyboard operability. Every interaction that can be performed with a mouse or touch gesture must be achievable through keyboard navigation ideally within six keystrokes or fewer.

This requirement affects users who:

• Rely on screen readers for navigation
• Have motor impairments that prevent precise mouse control
• Use alternative input devices like switch controls or eye-tracking systems
• Simply prefer keyboard navigation for efficiency

Common keyboard operability failures include:

• Custom dropdown menus that only respond to mouse clicks
• Modal dialogs that don’t trap focus appropriately
• Interactive elements that aren’t reachable via tab navigation
• Complex workflows that require dozens of tab presses to complete

Designing for keyboard operability from the start requires thinking structurally about user flows and ensuring that your interaction patterns work across input methods. This is particularly critical for custom software platforms and eLearning interfaces where users need to complete complex tasks efficiently.

Semantic Structure: The Foundation of Accessibility

Screen readers and other assistive technologies rely heavily on semantic HTML structure to help users navigate and understand content. Semantic HTML uses elements according to their meaning rather than appearance, which enables assistive technologies to programmatically determine content structure and relationships.

When designers hand off mockups that only specify visual styling without considering heading hierarchies and content structure, developers face an impossible choice: match the visual design or create accessible markup.

Key semantic considerations include:

• Heading hierarchies: Use H1-H6 tags to create logical content outlines, not just visual styling
• Landmark regions: Clearly define navigation, main content, and sidebar areas
• Form structure: Associate labels with form fields and group related inputs
• List markup: Use proper list tags for navigation menus and content groups

The best approach is to establish semantic wireframes early in the design process, ensuring that your content structure supports both visual design goals and screen reader navigation before moving into detailed UI work.

Implementing WCAG Across Development Workflows

Successful WCAG compliance requires building accessibility checks into your regular development and review processes. Teams that treat accessibility as a final audit step consistently ship products with significant barriers to access.

Effective implementation strategies include:

Design Phase Integration

• Include accessibility requirements in design briefs and user stories
• Use accessibility-first design systems and component libraries
• Test color combinations and typography choices against WCAG contrast requirements
• Design keyboard navigation flows alongside mouse-based interactions

Development Phase Controls

• Integrate automated accessibility testing into CI/CD pipelines
• Require semantic HTML structure in code review processes
• Test with actual screen readers during development, not just automated tools
• Validate keyboard navigation and focus management for custom components

Quality Assurance Expansion

• Include accessibility testing in standard QA workflows
• Test with multiple assistive technologies and browser combinations
• Validate content readability across different user capabilities
• Conduct usability testing with actual users who rely on assistive technologies

When to Build Internal Capability vs. Partner with Specialists

One of the most common challenges B2B organizations face is determining whether to develop internal accessibility expertise or work with specialized partners for WCAG compliance.

Building internal capability makes sense when:

• You’re developing multiple digital products that require ongoing accessibility maintenance
• Your industry has specific accessibility regulations (healthcare, education, government)
• You have the bandwidth to train existing team members in accessibility best practices
• Your development workflows can accommodate accessibility testing and review processes

Partnering with accessibility specialists is often more effective when:

• You need to achieve compliance quickly for a specific project or audit
• Your team lacks experience with assistive technologies and testing methodologies
• You’re building complex custom software that requires specialized accessibility architecture
• You need independent validation of your accessibility implementations

Many successful organizations adopt a hybrid approach: building basic accessibility awareness across their internal teams while partnering with specialists for complex implementations, audits, and training.

If you’re evaluating web design and development services for accessible digital experiences, look for teams that demonstrate both technical accessibility expertise and experience coordinating accessibility requirements across design, development, and content workflows.

Evolving Standards and Future-Proofing

WCAG standards continue to evolve, with WCAG 3.0 in development and new guidance emerging around emerging technologies like voice interfaces and AR/VR experiences. Teams building long-term digital products need to consider how their accessibility approach will adapt to changing requirements.

Current developments worth monitoring include:

• APCA (Advanced Perceptual Contrast Algorithm): A more nuanced approach to color contrast that may replace current WCAG contrast ratios
• Cognitive accessibility guidelines: Expanded guidance for users with cognitive and learning differences
• Mobile accessibility standards: Enhanced requirements for touch interfaces and mobile-specific interaction patterns
• AI and automation accessibility: Guidelines for making AI-powered interfaces accessible to assistive technologies

The most future-proof approach is to build accessibility thinking into your design and development culture rather than treating it as a compliance checklist. Teams that understand the underlying principles of accessible design can adapt to new standards and technologies more readily than those following rigid rules.

How Branch Boston Approaches WCAG Compliance

At Branch Boston, we’ve found that successful accessibility implementation requires treating WCAG compliance as a design and engineering discipline, not an afterthought. Our approach integrates accessibility considerations throughout our design and development process:

• Accessibility-first design systems: We build component libraries and design patterns that meet WCAG standards by default
• Cross-functional accessibility training: Our designers, developers, and strategists understand their specific roles in delivering accessible experiences
• Real-world testing methodologies: We test with actual assistive technologies and include users with disabilities in our design validation process
• Sustainable maintenance planning: We help clients build internal processes to maintain accessibility standards as their digital products evolve

Whether you’re building a new digital platform, updating existing software, or developing eLearning experiences, our UX/UI design services include accessibility planning and implementation as a core capability, not an optional add-on.

This approach reflects our broader philosophy: the best digital experiences work well for everyone, and accessibility constraints often lead to cleaner, more usable designs for all users.