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Deep dives into design thinking, creative process, and the intersection of business and aesthetics.
Accessibility is good design that stops excluding paying customers.
For years, businesses treated website accessibility as a "nice to have." It was a box to check for CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) or a charitable project for a rainy day.
That era is over.
With the European Accessibility Act (EAA) coming into full force in 2025, accessibility is now a legal reality. But more importantly, it is a commercial one. If your site blocks 15% of the population from booking a service or buying a product, you are not just being exclusionary; you are leaking revenue.
Accessibility as revenue protection
Disability is not a niche edge case. Between permanent disabilities (blindness), temporary ones (a broken arm), and situational ones (glare on a mobile screen), "accessibility" really just means "usability for everyone."
More Reach: An accessible site ranks better on Google and loads faster.
Procurement Advantage: Large corporate and government tenders now mandate WCAG 2.1 AA compliance. If you aren't compliant, you can't bid.
Stronger Trust: A site that works seamlessly with a keyboard feels more robust to every user.
The failures that quietly lose customers
Most accessibility failures are invisible to the marketing director using a mouse on a large monitor.
Contrast: Grey text on a white background looks "sleek" but is unreadable for millions.
Forms: Inputs without clear labels cause users to abandon checkouts.
Keyboard Traps: If a user can tab into a menu but cannot tab out, they are forced to leave the site.
These are not aesthetic choices; they are functional bugs that kill conversion.
Why overlays are not a solution
You have seen them: the little "accessibility widget" icon in the bottom corner of cheap websites.
These overlays (or "toolbars") are often sold as a magic bullet for compliance. They are not. In fact, many privacy and accessibility advocates argue they make the experience worse for screen reader users by interfering with their native tools.
An overlay is a bandage on a broken leg. It provides false comfort to the business owner without solving the underlying code issues that trigger lawsuits.
Premium design can be accessible
There is a myth that accessible sites have to be ugly—that they need neon colours and giant text.
This is false. The principles of accessibility—high contrast, clear hierarchy, legible typography—are the exact same principles as "Swiss Style" design.
We build accessibility into the design system itself. We choose colour palettes that pass WCAG AA standards by default. We define focus states (the outline around a selected button) that look on-brand, not broken.
Retrofit vs. Rebuild: a decision tree
If your site is currently failing compliance, you have a choice.
Retrofit: If the codebase is solid but the colours are too faint, we can fix the CSS. This is low cost and high impact.
Rebuild: If the HTML structure is fundamentally broken (e.g., using
<div>instead of<button>), a retrofit is often more expensive than starting fresh.
What “done” looks like
You cannot automate accessibility 100%. Automated tools (like Lighthouse) only catch about 30% of issues.
True compliance requires a "hybrid" audit:
Automated Scan: Catch the easy errors (missing alt tags).
Manual Test: Navigate the site using only a keyboard.
Governance: Ensure the content team knows not to upload PDFs that are just images of text.
Accessibility is not a feature you add at the end. It is the quality of the build itself.
Accessibility is good design that stops excluding paying customers.
For years, businesses treated website accessibility as a "nice to have." It was a box to check for CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) or a charitable project for a rainy day.
That era is over.
With the European Accessibility Act (EAA) coming into full force in 2025, accessibility is now a legal reality. But more importantly, it is a commercial one. If your site blocks 15% of the population from booking a service or buying a product, you are not just being exclusionary; you are leaking revenue.
Accessibility as revenue protection
Disability is not a niche edge case. Between permanent disabilities (blindness), temporary ones (a broken arm), and situational ones (glare on a mobile screen), "accessibility" really just means "usability for everyone."
More Reach: An accessible site ranks better on Google and loads faster.
Procurement Advantage: Large corporate and government tenders now mandate WCAG 2.1 AA compliance. If you aren't compliant, you can't bid.
Stronger Trust: A site that works seamlessly with a keyboard feels more robust to every user.
The failures that quietly lose customers
Most accessibility failures are invisible to the marketing director using a mouse on a large monitor.
Contrast: Grey text on a white background looks "sleek" but is unreadable for millions.
Forms: Inputs without clear labels cause users to abandon checkouts.
Keyboard Traps: If a user can tab into a menu but cannot tab out, they are forced to leave the site.
These are not aesthetic choices; they are functional bugs that kill conversion.
Why overlays are not a solution
You have seen them: the little "accessibility widget" icon in the bottom corner of cheap websites.
These overlays (or "toolbars") are often sold as a magic bullet for compliance. They are not. In fact, many privacy and accessibility advocates argue they make the experience worse for screen reader users by interfering with their native tools.
An overlay is a bandage on a broken leg. It provides false comfort to the business owner without solving the underlying code issues that trigger lawsuits.
Premium design can be accessible
There is a myth that accessible sites have to be ugly—that they need neon colours and giant text.
This is false. The principles of accessibility—high contrast, clear hierarchy, legible typography—are the exact same principles as "Swiss Style" design.
We build accessibility into the design system itself. We choose colour palettes that pass WCAG AA standards by default. We define focus states (the outline around a selected button) that look on-brand, not broken.
Retrofit vs. Rebuild: a decision tree
If your site is currently failing compliance, you have a choice.
Retrofit: If the codebase is solid but the colours are too faint, we can fix the CSS. This is low cost and high impact.
Rebuild: If the HTML structure is fundamentally broken (e.g., using
<div>instead of<button>), a retrofit is often more expensive than starting fresh.
What “done” looks like
You cannot automate accessibility 100%. Automated tools (like Lighthouse) only catch about 30% of issues.
True compliance requires a "hybrid" audit:
Automated Scan: Catch the easy errors (missing alt tags).
Manual Test: Navigate the site using only a keyboard.
Governance: Ensure the content team knows not to upload PDFs that are just images of text.
Accessibility is not a feature you add at the end. It is the quality of the build itself.
Accessibility is good design that stops excluding paying customers.
For years, businesses treated website accessibility as a "nice to have." It was a box to check for CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) or a charitable project for a rainy day.
That era is over.
With the European Accessibility Act (EAA) coming into full force in 2025, accessibility is now a legal reality. But more importantly, it is a commercial one. If your site blocks 15% of the population from booking a service or buying a product, you are not just being exclusionary; you are leaking revenue.
Accessibility as revenue protection
Disability is not a niche edge case. Between permanent disabilities (blindness), temporary ones (a broken arm), and situational ones (glare on a mobile screen), "accessibility" really just means "usability for everyone."
More Reach: An accessible site ranks better on Google and loads faster.
Procurement Advantage: Large corporate and government tenders now mandate WCAG 2.1 AA compliance. If you aren't compliant, you can't bid.
Stronger Trust: A site that works seamlessly with a keyboard feels more robust to every user.
The failures that quietly lose customers
Most accessibility failures are invisible to the marketing director using a mouse on a large monitor.
Contrast: Grey text on a white background looks "sleek" but is unreadable for millions.
Forms: Inputs without clear labels cause users to abandon checkouts.
Keyboard Traps: If a user can tab into a menu but cannot tab out, they are forced to leave the site.
These are not aesthetic choices; they are functional bugs that kill conversion.
Why overlays are not a solution
You have seen them: the little "accessibility widget" icon in the bottom corner of cheap websites.
These overlays (or "toolbars") are often sold as a magic bullet for compliance. They are not. In fact, many privacy and accessibility advocates argue they make the experience worse for screen reader users by interfering with their native tools.
An overlay is a bandage on a broken leg. It provides false comfort to the business owner without solving the underlying code issues that trigger lawsuits.
Premium design can be accessible
There is a myth that accessible sites have to be ugly—that they need neon colours and giant text.
This is false. The principles of accessibility—high contrast, clear hierarchy, legible typography—are the exact same principles as "Swiss Style" design.
We build accessibility into the design system itself. We choose colour palettes that pass WCAG AA standards by default. We define focus states (the outline around a selected button) that look on-brand, not broken.
Retrofit vs. Rebuild: a decision tree
If your site is currently failing compliance, you have a choice.
Retrofit: If the codebase is solid but the colours are too faint, we can fix the CSS. This is low cost and high impact.
Rebuild: If the HTML structure is fundamentally broken (e.g., using
<div>instead of<button>), a retrofit is often more expensive than starting fresh.
What “done” looks like
You cannot automate accessibility 100%. Automated tools (like Lighthouse) only catch about 30% of issues.
True compliance requires a "hybrid" audit:
Automated Scan: Catch the easy errors (missing alt tags).
Manual Test: Navigate the site using only a keyboard.
Governance: Ensure the content team knows not to upload PDFs that are just images of text.
Accessibility is not a feature you add at the end. It is the quality of the build itself.