Accessible Websites: What Applies and What SMEs Should Do

Few web topics are sold with as much fear as accessibility (“Warning letters incoming! Act NOW!”). We will try to keep it calm: what the term means, what the legal situation looks like, and why the measures are worth it anyway.

What “accessible” actually means

An accessible website can also be used by people with impairments. Someone who sees poorly needs sufficient contrast and text that can be enlarged. Someone who cannot see has the page read aloud, which only works with a clean page structure and text descriptions for images. Someone who cannot use a mouse navigates by keyboard. Someone who hears poorly needs subtitles on videos. The recognised standard for this is called WCAG (an international set of criteria, with level AA counting as the norm).

The legal situation, without the drama

Switzerland: The obligation applies mainly to the federal government, the cantons and public bodies. For private companies there is no general website requirement, but there is the anti-discrimination principle of the Disability Discrimination Act, and expectations are rising: anyone who wants public contracts is increasingly asked about accessibility.

EU (relevant if you sell there): Since mid-2025, the European Accessibility Act has required accessibility for many websites with sales and service functions. If you serve EU customers, you should take this seriously.

In short: For most Swiss SMEs there is no urgent obligation, but a clear direction. Anyone building new sensibly builds it right from the start.

Why it pays off regardless of the law

The measures help all visitors: good contrast benefits anyone looking at their phone in sunlight. A clear structure helps anyone in a hurry. Text descriptions and a clean structure help Google: search engines “read” pages much like screen readers do, so accessible pages are almost automatically easier to find (the link to being found is explained in this article). And around a fifth of the population lives with an impairment, and those are customers.

The key measures (the worthwhile minimum)

Sufficient colour contrast between text and background, full operability by keyboard, text descriptions for all images that matter to the content, a clean heading order (which screen readers also understand), forms with clear labels and understandable error messages, zoom up to 200% without the layout breaking, and no information conveyed by colour alone.

Retrofit or rebuild?

Honestly: with existing websites the effort depends heavily on the foundation. Some things can be retrofitted, and with website-builder sites the provider sets the limits. With a new build, accessibility costs almost nothing extra if it is built in from the start. That is exactly how we do it: every murmy website includes it as standard, including this one. Whether retrofitting or rebuilding makes more sense for you is something the price calculator and the honest assessment afterwards will clarify.