Healthcare sites serve people in pain, people with low vision, people using screen readers, people with tremor, people on old phones. WCAG 2.2 AA is the floor we build to — not a plaque in the footer.
Visible barriers we fix on every build
- Contrast: body text against cream or ink that actually passes, including muted labels.
- Focus states you can see. Keyboard users are not a niche in healthcare.
- Form labels that are real <label> elements, not placeholders.
- Tap targets at least 44px. Phone numbers and booking buttons especially.
- Alt text that describes the clinical or human content, not ‘image123’.
- Captions or transcripts for any patient-education video.
- No information conveyed by color alone (open / closed, severity).
- Resizable text that does not break the layout at 200%.
- Motion that honors prefers-reduced-motion.
This is not a complete legal guide and not a substitute for a formal audit on large health systems. It is the work that makes a private-practice site usable for the people who need it.