Accessibility is usually framed as a compliance obligation. For a psychiatric practice it is better understood as an access issue: the patients most likely to struggle with an inaccessible site are disproportionately the patients you serve.
Why it matters here specifically
Consider who is using your site:
- People with concentration and cognitive difficulties, which are common features of the conditions you treat.
- People in acute distress, for whom a confusing interface is a genuine barrier.
- People with co-occurring physical disabilities or visual impairment.
- Older patients and family members researching on someone behalf.
- Patients on medication affecting concentration.
A site that is hard to navigate is not merely inconvenient for these visitors. It filters them out, and they are your patients.
The overlap with search and AI
Most accessibility work also makes your site more machine-readable, because both audiences need structure and text rather than visual inference:
- Proper heading hierarchy helps screen readers and helps engines extract structure.
- Descriptive alt text serves screen reader users and tells engines what images show.
- Descriptive link text helps both, whereas click here helps neither.
- Text rather than images of text is essential for screen readers and required for extraction. Your address in a graphic is invisible to both.
- Clear, plain language aids comprehension and extraction alike.
- Captions and transcripts make video accessible and indexable.
- Logical structure and labelled forms improve usability and crawlability.
This overlap is why accessibility belongs in a visibility course rather than only in a compliance checklist.
The practical essentials
- Colour contrast sufficient for body text. Light grey on white is the most common failure and the easiest to fix.
- Text resizing without breaking the layout.
- Keyboard navigation through every interactive element, with a visible focus indicator.
- Alt text on every meaningful image, and empty alt on decorative ones.
- One h1 per page and a sensible heading order.
- Labelled form fields, with errors described in text rather than by colour alone.
- Click-to-call phone numbers with adequate tap targets.
- No information conveyed by colour alone.
- No auto-playing media, which is disorienting and unwelcome.
- Captions on any video.
Content accessibility
Beyond the technical layer, the writing matters as much:
- Short paragraphs and plain sentences.
- Explain clinical terms the first time you use them.
- Put the important information first rather than building to it.
- Use lists for steps and requirements.
- Make the next action obvious on every page.
A patient with impaired concentration should be able to find your phone number and your address without reading a paragraph. That is a reasonable design standard for this specialty.
Overlays are not a fix
Automated accessibility overlay widgets are widely marketed as instant compliance. They are widely criticised by disability advocates and by screen reader users, they often interfere with assistive technology, and they do not remedy underlying problems. They also add weight to your page, working against the previous lesson.
Fix the site itself. It is more work initially and it actually helps.
Where to start
- Run an automated checker to catch the obvious contrast and structure issues.
- Navigate your own site using only the keyboard.
- Check every image has appropriate alt text.
- Verify your address and phone number are real text everywhere.
- Fix contrast on body copy.
- Treat WCAG AA as the target and get advice if you need a formal assessment.
Chapter seven turns to reviews, where the rules are narrower than the folklore suggests.