Website accessibility basics for Australian businesses
By Martin Soliman,
Most Australian business owners think of a website as something to look good and bring in enquiries. Fewer think about whether everyone can actually use it. Website accessibility means building and maintaining a site so that people with disability, including people who are blind, have low vision, are deaf or hard of hearing, or have limited movement, can read it, move around it and contact you. This guide explains the basics in plain English so you know what to ask for and what to check.
What the Australian Human Rights Commission says
In April 2025 the Australian Human Rights Commission published its Guidelines on equal access to digital goods and services. According to the Commission, the guidelines explain how organisations can provide accessible digital goods and services and meet their obligations under the Disability Discrimination Act. They update the Commission's earlier World Wide Web Access advisory note from 2014.
The audience the Commission names is wide. It includes executives, managers and boards, designers, developers and publishers, and suppliers and procurement professionals, so the guidelines are written with businesses in mind and not only government.
It is worth reading the status of the document carefully. The Commission states that the guidelines are not legally binding and should be read alongside the Disability Discrimination Act and state and territory anti discrimination laws. It also says an organisation that relies on the guidelines may still not be protected from a finding of unlawful discrimination. If you have a specific legal question, speak to a lawyer. This article is general information only and is not legal advice.
What WCAG is
The Commission describes the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, known as WCAG, as the applicable international standard for web accessibility, and says it is important to meet the requirements of the latest published version. WCAG is published by the World Wide Web Consortium. Its testable requirements are grouped into three levels: A, AA and AAA. WCAG 2.2 was published on 5 October 2023, with an update on 12 December 2024, and the World Wide Web Consortium encourages people to use the latest version.
You do not need to memorise the detail. What matters is that a provider can tell you which version and level they build to, and can explain how they check it.
Practical checks you can make today
These are general good practice rather than a full audit, but they catch many everyday problems.
- Describe your images. Meaningful photos, such as a cafe menu board or a clinic floor plan, should have short text descriptions so a screen reader can convey them. Purely decorative images can be left without one.
- Check contrast. Light grey text on a white background is hard for many people to read. Text should stand out clearly from its background.
- Use real headings. Headings should follow a logical order so that someone using assistive technology can scan the page the way others scan it by eye.
- Label your forms. Every field in an enquiry or booking form needs a clear label, and error messages should say what went wrong and how to fix it.
- Try the keyboard. Put your mouse aside and see whether you can reach every link, menu and button using the Tab key, and whether you can see where you are on the page.
- Caption video and provide transcripts. If you publish video, people who cannot hear it still need the content.
- Write in plain language. Short sentences and clear link wording such as "Book a consultation" help every visitor, not only those using assistive technology.
Why it matters beyond compliance
Accessible sites tend to be clearer for everyone. A boutique shopper on a phone in bright sunlight benefits from strong contrast. A parent booking a studio class one handed benefits from large, well labelled buttons. A patient looking for clinic opening hours benefits from a well structured page. Making it easy to enquire is also simply good for business.
Questions to ask your web provider
- Which version and level of WCAG do you build to?
- How do you test, and do you test with a keyboard and a screen reader?
- Will booking and enquiry forms be accessible?
- Who fixes issues when they are found, and is that included?
- How is accessibility kept up as pages are added or changed?
Sources
Guidelines on equal access to digital goods and services, Australian Human Rights Commission; Web Content Accessibility Guidelines overview, W3C Web Accessibility Initiative.
How Conciergia handles it
Conciergia is a done for you online system run by one provider, so there is one place to take the questions above. The website is custom built with unlimited pages and revisions, and hosting, maintenance, professional email, Google Business Profile and a logo are included. Front Desk captures and qualifies enquiries and supports bookings, and search, social, a simple native shop or full Shopify store, and Facebook and Instagram ads as an add on can sit alongside it. Pricing is a one off setup fee plus a weekly plan, there is no lock in, clients can cancel anytime, and the enquiries a site collects belong to the client. See the pricing page and send an enquiry if you would like to talk it through.