Digital accessibility is equality
The European Accessibility Act and WCAG in practice: accessible websites and services, just like ramps and lifts in our town centres.
In local politics I work for a Nokia where streets, town centres and public buildings are usable by everyone: ramps instead of steps, lifts, barrier-free routes. In my professional life I see the same question every day in a different form. A website that can't be used with a screen reader is a building without a ramp.
Digital accessibility isn't a nice extra. It is equality, and in the EU it is increasingly the law.
Who benefits
Accessibility is often thought of as something for a small group. In reality it serves:
- people who are blind or have low vision and use screen readers or magnification,
- people with motor impairments who use a keyboard, switch or voice control instead of a mouse,
- people who are deaf or hard of hearing and need captions,
- people with cognitive or learning disabilities who need clear language and predictable layouts,
- older adults, whose eyesight, hearing and fine motor skills change with age,
- and all of us in temporary situations: a broken arm, bright sunlight on the phone screen, a noisy train.
The law in short
- In Finland, public sector websites and apps have had to meet accessibility requirements since 2019 under the Act on the Provision of Digital Services. Information and guidance is available at saavutettavuusvaatimukset.fi (opens in a new tab).
- The European Accessibility Act has applied since 28 June 2025. It extends requirements to many private services, such as e-commerce, banking services, e-books, electronic communications and passenger transport ticketing.
- The technical baseline is the European standard EN 301 549, which refers to WCAG level AA. WCAG 2.2 is the current version of the guidelines.
Ten checks anyone can do
- Use only the keyboard. Can you reach and use every link, button and form with Tab, Enter and Space? Can you see where the focus is?
- Zoom to 200 %. Does the content still work without horizontal scrolling?
- Check images. Do meaningful images have a text alternative, and decorative ones an empty one?
- Check contrast. Is the text clearly readable against its background?
- Read the headings. Do they form a logical outline of the page?
- Check forms. Does every field have a visible label? Are error messages clear and next to the field?
- Don't rely on colour alone. "Fields in red are required" doesn't work for everyone.
- Captions and transcripts for video and audio.
- Plain language. Short sentences, familiar words, one idea per paragraph.
- Try a screen reader. NVDA on Windows and VoiceOver on Apple devices are free. Five minutes is an eye-opener.
Accessibility and security belong together
Security controls are a common accessibility barrier: image-only CAPTCHAs, sign-in flows that time out too quickly, or codes that must be copied between devices. Good design solves both. Passkeys, for example, are more secure than passwords and easier for many people with disabilities, because there is nothing to remember or type.
When I rebuilt this website I aimed for the same principle: semantic HTML, keyboard navigation, sufficient contrast, no CAPTCHAs and no unnecessary scripts. Accessibility and security turned out to point in the same direction: simpler is better.