Website accessibility for a small business

If your business is open to the public, the US Department of Justice says the ADA applies to what you offer online, so your website should work for people with disabilities. There is no federal checklist written for businesses, but there is a widely used standard, and most fixes are small.

This guide explains the Justice Department's position, the WCAG standard, and the checks a clinic, dental practice, or professional firm can run on its own site. It is general information, not legal advice. If you receive a demand letter or want a formal audit, talk to a lawyer and an accessibility specialist.

What the Justice Department says

The Americans with Disabilities Act covers state and local governments under Title II and businesses open to the public under Title III. The Justice Department's 2022 guidance lists examples of businesses open to the public, including retail stores, banks, hotels, food and drink places, and hospitals and medical offices.^[1]

The guidance says the department has consistently taken the position that the ADA applies to all the goods and services a business offers to the public, including those offered on the web.^[1] It also says the department has no regulation setting out detailed web standards for businesses, so businesses have flexibility in how they comply, but they must still make what they offer online accessible.^[1]

For a dental practice, "what you offer online" means the pages a patient uses to learn about you, find your hours, request an appointment, or fill in a form. For an accounting firm, it is the contact form and client portal link as much as the homepage.

The government rule is not the business rule

You may have read about a 2024 web accessibility rule with deadlines. That rule applies to state and local governments, not private businesses. It adopts WCAG 2.1 Level AA as the technical standard for their websites and mobile apps.^[2]

Its dates have also moved. In April 2026 the department published an interim final rule pushing compliance to April 26, 2027 for governments serving 50,000 people or more, and April 26, 2028 for smaller ones and special districts.^[2] None of this sets a deadline for a business, but it shows which standard the department chose when it did write one.

WCAG in plain words

The Justice Department's guidance points to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) as helpful technical guidance.^[1] WCAG is published by the W3C. The current version, WCAG 2.2, was last updated as a W3C Recommendation on December 12, 2024.^[3]

WCAG has 3 levels: A, AA, and AAA, from lowest to highest.^[3] Level AA is the one the government rule uses, which makes it a sensible target for a business site too.^[2]

Target size is one of the criteria new in version 2.2.^[3] It matters most on phones, where buttons are tapped with a thumb.

The barriers the guidance names

The Justice Department's guidance lists the common problems, and they are a good place to start.^[1]

• Poor color contrast. Light gray text on a pale background cannot be read by people with limited vision.
• Color alone carrying meaning. Red text as the only sign that a field is required. The guidance suggests adding the word "required".
• Images without alt text. A screen reader cannot describe a photo of your team or a chart of your fees without it.
• Videos without captions. Your welcome video says nothing to a visitor who cannot hear it.
• Inaccessible forms. Fields with no labels, unclear instructions, or errors that are not announced.
• Mouse-only navigation. Menus and buttons that cannot be reached with a keyboard.

Forms deserve the most attention

For a service business, the form is where a visitor becomes a customer. The guidance says labels, keyboard access, and clear instructions are important for accessible forms, and that people using screen readers should be told automatically when they fill in a field incorrectly.^[1]

• Give every field a visible label above it. Do not rely on gray placeholder text that disappears when someone types.
• Say which fields are required in words, not only with color or an asterisk.
• Write error messages that say what is wrong and how to fix it, next to the field.
• Make sure the whole form, including the send button, works with the Tab and Enter keys.
• Keep forms short. Ask only what you need before the first appointment.

Our forms let you build intake and booking request forms, and long forms can be saved and finished later, which helps anyone who needs more time. You still choose the labels, wording, and colors, so run the checks above on every form you publish.

A 30-minute check you can run this week

1. Unplug your mouse and try to book an appointment using only the keyboard.
2. Check your main text and button colors with a free contrast checker against the 4.5 to 1 ratio.
3. Open your homepage and services page and confirm every meaningful image has alt text.
4. Play your videos with the sound off and check captions are there and accurate.
5. Fill in your contact form wrongly on purpose and see if the error message is clear.
6. Try your site on a phone and check every button is easy to tap.

Write down what you find and fix the booking and contact path first. An accessibility statement on your site, with a phone number or email for anyone who has trouble, gives people another way to reach you while you work through the rest.

In Pinn.Media CRM, you can edit your website pages yourself, so you can change a low-contrast color, add alt text, or rewrite a form label the day you find the problem. See how a dental practice and a professional services firm use their site and forms to take bookings.

Want a second pair of eyes on your booking path? Book a walkthrough and we will go through it with you, or compare plans.