Accessibility Without Burnout

If you’re a small agency trying to make websites more accessible, you’ve probably felt the pressure to get everything right. Maybe you’ve read the WCAG guidelines and instantly felt overwhelmed. Or maybe a client asked if their site is “fully accessible,” and your stomach sank because you knew the answer wasn’t simple.

You’re not alone. Most teams want to do better. But perfection feels out of reach when you’re already juggling redesigns, support tickets, content updates, and deadlines for multiple clients.

But accessibility isn’t about checking every box and achieving perfection – it’s about people. It’s about making steady progress that improves real experiences for real users.

Perfection paralysis is real

You don’t have to be perfect to make a difference. You just have to begin.

It’s easy to get stuck when you think accessibility means fixing every single issue immediately. The fear of “doing it wrong” can stop people from doing anything at all.

But that mindset doesn’t help anyone. Accessibility isn’t a one-time project – it’s a skill you build over time. Like any practice, the more you do it, the more natural it becomes. Each small step helps you get better, more confident, and more consistent. You don’t have to be perfect to make a difference. You just have to begin.

Progress over perfection

Instead of striving for perfection from day one, shift your focus to building awareness and embedding accessibility into your everyday workflow. Get training for your entire team so they can begin to understand the basics of accessibility. That includes developers, designers, copywriters, social media managers, QA, project management – and even you.

Start talking to your clients about accessibility early. Don’t wait for them to bring it up. You’re the professional – they’re counting on you to guide them toward the best solutions for their business or organization. Be proactive in advising clients that their site or application should be accessible.

Integrate accessibility into your processes. Look at each phase – planning, design, development, and content – and identify where you can start weaving accessibility in from the very beginning.

What progress looks like

Accessibility isn’t just a technical checklist. It’s a matter of civil and human rights.

Small improvements can have a big impact, so look for some easy wins that can go a long way toward improving the accessibility of a site. Things like adding clear and descriptive alt text for images, fixing the heading structure, and ensuring good color contrast can be handled with a small effort, but can make a big difference for the site’s users.

They’re little changes, but they matter. And they build the habit of including accessibility in every project and every update. You can also start documenting and showing the progress you’re making. Track the issues you’ve found, and the ones you’ve fixed. Run automated scans on a regular basis to track how things are improving. Keep a changelog of accessibility fixes and improvements.

This isn’t just helpful for you – it shows your clients that you’re committed, accountable, and that their investment is making a difference.

Why accessibility matters

It’s easy to get lost in the technicalities, but accessibility is about people. It’s about ensuring that everyone – regardless of ability, circumstance, or context – can fully engage with the digital world. That includes people who rely on screen readers or refreshable braille displays, people who rely on keyboard navigation, and people who need clear structure and consistent patterns to understand what a website is all about.

Every barrier we remove opens a door.

It also includes people with temporary injuries, age-related changes, or situational challenges like navigating a website one-handed while holding a baby, or reading on a phone in bright sunlight.

Every barrier we remove opens a door. Every improvement you make could be the change that makes it possible for someone to apply for a job, access medical care, buy groceries, or get the help they need.

Accessibility isn’t just a technical checklist. It’s a way of honoring the diversity of human experience. It’s a matter of civil and human rights. It’s about making the web a more inclusive and welcoming place for everyone.

You’re not just helping a few people – you’re improving usability for everyone. Clearer navigation, better color contrast, more readable content – these things benefit every single user.

Steady progress matters. It helps real people, right now. And it adds up over time to lasting change.

You’re already doing better than you think

If you’ve read this far, chances are that accessibility is something that you care about. That alone puts you ahead of many other web agencies out there.

Accessibility is about care, commitment, and continuous improvement. Keep showing up. Keep fixing what you can. Keep learning. Keep moving forward.

We’re here to help you and cheer you on along the way.

You don’t need to be perfect – just start

“Start where you are, use what you have, do what you can”

–Arthur Ashe

If you’re able to do so, hiring an accessibility consultant to guide you through training and integrating accessibility into your processes is my top recommendation for getting started. But if that’s out of reach for you just now, you can still make meaningful progress on your accessibility journey.

Over time, progress pays off. The more accessibility becomes part of your workflow, the more resilient and future-proof your websites become. You’re not just avoiding legal troubles for your clients. You’re building better digital experiences for everyone.

You need a plan to help you stay organized, informed, and focused on the next step. That’s exactly why we built AAArdvark. We wanted a way to make accessibility approachable for small teams who wear a lot of hats. With AAArdvark you can run automated and manual tests, assign and track issues across your team, and show real progress over time.

We believe that progress is powerful. We believe that small teams can make a big difference. Start small and keep going.