Website accessibility in India: why it matters more than you think
Website accessibility is not just a legal checkbox for Western markets. For Indian businesses, it is a practical way to reach more users and build a better product.
Website accessibility is the practice of building websites that can be used by people with disabilities, including visual, hearing, motor, and cognitive impairments. In India, this topic is often treated as irrelevant or as something only relevant to government portals complying with the GIGW (Guidelines for Indian Government Websites). That framing misses the real opportunity.
India has approximately 26 million people with significant visual impairments and over 18 million with hearing impairments, according to census data. These are not small numbers. Building an inaccessible website excludes a meaningful portion of your potential audience by default.
The practical case for accessibility
Beyond inclusion, accessible websites perform better. Alt text on images helps screen readers, yes, but it also gives Google's image search more context. Proper heading structure assists screen reader users, but it also makes your content easier for search engines to understand and for all users to scan quickly.
High colour contrast ratios help users with colour vision deficiencies. They also help everyone reading in bright sunlight on a smartphone, which describes a significant portion of Indian mobile users. Keyboard navigability assists users with motor impairments, but it also helps power users who prefer keyboards and reduces friction for everyone.
Accessibility and performance tend to go together. Accessible sites tend to have cleaner HTML, properly structured content, and minimal reliance on heavy JavaScript for basic functionality. These properties improve page speed, which Google cares about.
What accessibility actually looks like in practice
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 are the international standard. Level AA is the target most organisations aim for. The key areas are as follows.
Images must have descriptive alt text. Not "image001.jpg" but "founder Amit Sharma speaking at TechSparks Bengaluru 2023." Decorative images can have empty alt attributes.
Forms must have proper labels. Every input field needs a label that is associated with it using the HTML for attribute, not just visual placeholder text that disappears when users start typing.
Videos should have captions. Even a basic auto-generated caption from YouTube is better than none. This helps deaf users and also people watching without sound on a train.
Interactive elements like buttons and links need to work with keyboard navigation alone, using the Tab and Enter keys. Many Indian websites have dropdown menus or modals that are impossible to use without a mouse.
Testing for accessibility without specialist tools
You do not need expensive tools to do a basic accessibility check. The WAVE browser extension (free, available for Chrome and Firefox) scans any page and highlights accessibility issues with clear explanations. Google Lighthouse, built into Chrome DevTools, includes an accessibility audit.
Try navigating your own website using only the keyboard. Tab through the page. Can you reach every interactive element? Can you use your navigation menus? Can you submit your contact form? If not, users with motor impairments cannot either.
Increase your browser text size to 200 percent. Does your layout break? Does text overlap or get cut off? Accessible design handles text scaling gracefully.
Frequently asked questions
Is website accessibility legally required in India?
The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act 2016 and the RPWD Rules 2017 require government establishments and certain regulated entities to have accessible websites. For private businesses, it is not strictly mandated yet, but this is changing in many sectors.
How much does it cost to make a website accessible?
If you are building a new website, building accessibly from the start adds minimal cost. Retrofitting an existing inaccessible site can be more involved, but basic improvements like alt text, proper labels, and colour contrast can often be implemented by a developer in a few days.
Will accessibility changes affect my website's design?
Good accessibility does not require ugly design. It requires thoughtful design. Many of India's most visually appealing websites are also well-built from an accessibility standpoint.