Digital accessibility: what are we really talking about?

On 28 June 2025, European Directive 2019/882 on accessibility requirements for products and services came into force. A real lever for equal rights and opportunities, this text is intended to reflect the political will of making accessibility a pillar of citizenship.

Since then, the term "digital accessibility" has been in circulation everywhere: in calls for tender, redesigns and discussions. Everyone projects onto it what they want: sometimes a technical constraint to be taken into account by developers, sometimes a legal obligation to be taken on board by legal departments. But when all is said and done, behind the terminology of digital accessibility, what are we really talking about?

Digital accessibility: a concrete concept

Behind the vocabulary, which may seem abstract, the idea is simple: the ability of a website, application or online service to be used by everyone, including people with disabilities.

Let's take a concrete example: a blind person is looking to book an appointment on a hospital website. They use a screen reader that speaks the content of the page. Everything goes smoothly until the validation form. The «Confirm» button has not been correctly coded: the software does not detect it, and the person cannot validate. They are blocked, as surely as if they were standing in front of a locked door.

This is neither an image nor a metaphor: they are real obstacles, as real as an impassable step in the street. If your site only works for people without disabilities, you are creating an exclusion.

A diversity of situations, a diversity of needs

Disabilities never present themselves in the same way. They may affect sight, hearing, motor skills or cognitive functions, or sometimes several at once. And each situation transforms the way we interact with digital technology.

Visual impairment

To navigate the web, a blind person uses a screen reader that vocalises the content of the page. If an image has no alternative text, the software simply says «image». The information disappears into the void. Depending on their needs, they can also use a Braille keyboard.

A visually impaired person may need to zoom in on the text at 200% or drastically increase the contrast. If the site's layout explodes at the slightest zoom, it becomes unusable, even if it is technically «responsive».

Braille area

Hearing impairment

For a deaf or hard-of-hearing person, a video without subtitles or a transcript is a black box. The audio content remains closed to them, however rich it may be.

Motor disability

Some people cannot use a mouse. They navigate using the keyboard, a trackball, an eye-tracking system or voice commands. A button that reacts only to the click of a mouse becomes an insurmountable wall.

Mental disability

Dyslexia, autism and attention disorders make reading difficult. Overly dense text, convoluted vocabulary and an interface overloaded with animations become real cognitive obstacles.

Digital technology creates its own barriers

Inaccessibility is almost never intentional: it arises from blind spots, from design reflexes, from choices that seem insignificant but which, for some, become barriers.

Here are a few examples:

• The form trapped in the mouse. A developer creates a form without thinking that some people only use the keyboard. Result: impossible to validate, impossible to send. The person is blocked.
• The mute icon. An elegant button, represented by a simple icon, with no explanatory text. The screen reader can't announce anything. The user doesn't know what the button is for, or even that it's a button.
• The ghost text. A designer is looking for simplicity: light grey text on a white background. Aesthetically it's light, but for the visually impaired it's illegible. Insufficient contrast washes out the content.
• The merry-go-round. An automatic slideshow scrolls too fast. A person with cognitive difficulties has no time to read. A keyboard user can't figure out how to stop it. The content escapes them.

These obstacles remain invisible to the majority of users, who never encounter them. This is precisely what makes them insidious: they fly under the radar until the day when someone tries to use the service and discovers that it is closed to them.

Accessibility first and foremost a human right

We'd like to think that accessibility is a technical matter: a few attributes to be corrected, a colour to be adjusted, a structure to be reviewed. But the heart of the matter lies elsewhere.

Accessibility is first and foremost a human rights issue. The UN Convention clearly states that disability does not originate in the individual, but in the obstacles placed in his or her path by his or her environment. In the street, it's a step, on a site, it's a nameless button.

A person is not «disabled by their deafness», they are disabled when a video has no subtitles. The difference changes everything: it's not up to the person to adapt, but for the digital environment to be barrier-free.

What accessibility is... and what it isn't

We often hear the phrase: «We are all disabled one day». The intention is generous: to create empathy, to show that accessibility benefits everyone. But if we try too hard to embrace it.., we end up erasing the reality of those for whom disability is a daily reality.

Being tired, having a grip or seeing badly on a migraine night has nothing to do with a lasting condition that structures a whole life. It's true that a site with good contrasts also helps people who read in the sun, and it's just as true that subtitled videos are useful in a noisy train, but let's make no mistake: accessibility is first and foremost designed for those whose ability to use digital technology depends entirely on it. For people with disabilities, this is not a secondary benefit, it's a primary need.