Digital accessibility isn’t, and should never be, a last-minute decision. 

While the implementation of accessible design has been improving in recent years, we’re set to see a big shift in 2025. 

New global and country-specific regulations will make accessible design a legal requirement. Not just for people with disabilities, but for everyone. 

Missing these requirements could mean facing penalties or losing access to key markets – so it’s worth getting ahead of them now. 

Even with the recent shift in improved accessible design, only 3% of the internet is actually accessible to individuals with disabilities (UserWay). 

Appalling, right? 

Accessible design affects a lot – on top of that, it’s simply the right thing to do both morally and legally. 

At the very bottom level, you don’t want to alienate anyone. Why build something and promote it if people can’t even use it? 

Making your site accessible widens your audience. It shows you care about your customers and anyone else who lands on your site. 

Accessible design should be in from the get-go. Add it to your processes. Train your teams on it. 

Whatever you do, make sure it’s never a second thought. It’s a requirement – and the clock’s ticking to get it sorted. 

Accessibility regulations aren’t new. The UK Equality Act 2010 has long required digital services to be accessible to all users. 

But from 2025, new laws will tighten the rules and increase enforcement.  

Even though new laws apply to EU and US markets, if you supply products or services to organisations in these regions, they affect you. 

June 28th marks when the European Accessibility Act (EAA) will come into force. 

The EAA makes it mandatory for businesses to ensure their websites, apps, e-commerce platforms and digital tools are usable by everyone. Companies will need to follow a standard called EN 301 549 and WCAG 2.1 Level AA guidelines 

WCAG 2.1 AA is based on four principles: Perceivable, Operable, Understandable and Robust. The “AA” stands for “Level AA,” the second-highest level of compliance, and what many governments consider the minimum standard to achieve. 

If you fail to comply with the EAA, you could face exclusion from EU markets and very high legal penalties. 

Colorado’s HB-21 has made accessibility a legal requirement for all state government websites, apps and digital documents.  

Your digital content needs to meet WCAG 2.1 standards if you want to work with public sector organisations in Colorado. 

For UK businesses offering services to US clients, this matters. Non-compliance could put contracts at risk. Not to mention a multitude of potential lawsuits. 

HB-21 may just be the start of something bigger. A test case that could see more states following in Colorado’s footsteps.  

If you trade in the US, getting ahead of this now will save you a lot of headaches down the line. 

While not new, the UK Equality Act 2010 means digital accessibility is a legal requirement. 

Companies must make “reasonable adjustments” to ensure individuals with disabilities can access their tools and platforms like anyone else.  

Failure to comply can lead to reputational damage and discrimination lawsuits with high payout costs. 

Disability discrimination tops the list for tribunal payouts in the UK with an average award of £45,435. That figure is just the payout, though. If you factor in legal fees, PR fallout, internal stress and HR time, the true cost is much higher. 

Unlike new laws that may come with grace periods to ensure compliance, the Equality Act has been enforceable for over a decade. If you haven’t addressed accessibility yet, you need act now.  

You might already have accessibility on your radar. But if you’re running an older system with stretched internal resources, updates might get forgotten. 

For larger teams, you might have the budget, but not always the time or know-how to make the right changes. 

Whatever situation you find yourself in, the consequences are always the same. Non-compliance can land you in some pretty hot water. Why take the risk? Addressing the issues now will make everything easier down the line. 

Working with Telescopic makes it easier to stay on top of new rules. We help you improve what you already have and guide you through change (step by step so you’re always compliant). 

Accessibility is embedded into everything we do. We’ve supported organisations like The Valuable 500 and The Royal Institute of Blind People (RNIB) and continue to apply the same care across all our work. 

Make real changes that help you follow the rules and improve user experience.  

Make accessibility work. 

1 in 5 people in the UK are disabled. If your site isn’t accessible, you’re missing out on sharing your work with many people. Let’s fix that. 

Web accessibility is designing your site to be accessible for everyone, regardless of disabilities or impairments. You’re implementing features that level the playing field.  

Accessible features help people with disabilities use content on their own, without any obstacles. 

Think of accessibility as inclusivity. No one likes to be left out, and your website shouldn’t be any different. Certain things need to be put into place to ensure this. 

You should care about web accessibility because: 

In the UK, the Equality Act 2010 legally requires websites and online content to be made accessible to everyone, including those with disabilities.   

Putting the legalities aside. Accessibility equals fairness and inclusion. Everyone deserves a fair chance in every walk of life, including while online. 

Accessibility is legally smart, morally sound. Don’t let it pass you by. 

Making your website more accessible doesn’t just help individuals with disabilities or impairments. Everyone gets to benefit.  

Accessible websites are usually easier to navigate, faster to load and much clearer to understand.  

If your site is accessible, you’re widening your audience AND you’re showing them you’re an organisation that gives a damn. 

And it broadens your reach – nearly one in four (24%) of people in the UK have a disability. Imagine raising your targets by that much. 

Accessibility features like correct headlines alt text, and clear navigation don’t simply make life easier for users. They help to boost your SEO score and reach more users organically. 

Bring a ladder. You’ll be climbing the rankings on Google in no time. 

We’ve broken down some small tweaks you can implement to make your site right now to be more inclusive.  

However, make sure that every aspect is tried and tested to ensure it works correctly prior to your content being set live. You don’t want any issues cropping up post-launch. 

Alt text is a written description of an image that can be read by a device’s screen readers. It helps visually impaired individuals understand the content of images they can’t see.  

Alt text shouldn’t be a simple title (e.g. Microsoft’s CEO). It should instead describe the picture, such as “a woman in her 50s wearing a red jumper with long brown hair and glasses looking at the camera and smiling.” After writing it, close your eyes. Can you picture what you just wrote? 

Adding alt text to your site’s images is easy. Just add short, clear descriptions in your website’s CMS.   

Captions and transcripts are text-based descriptions of video or audio content. They can include dialogue, sound effects or music. They make this form of content accessible to people with hearing impairments and allow users in noisy or quiet environments to engage with the content. 

Thanks to AI, there are a million and one tools out there that add captions once a video’s been uploaded. They even help to create snippets or other helpful audio descriptions. 

Motion-heavy content that loops endlessly can trigger vestibular disorders, such as dizziness or nausea, and can overwhelm users with cognitive impairments. Giving users the option to pause, stop or hide them means the content is comfortable for everyone.  

You can add controls to your site to enable users to stop or pause animations. 

Or use the CSS ‘prefers-reduced-motion’ query. This means your site will detect if a user has a setting enabled on their device to minimise the amount of non-essential motion. The browser then knows to remove, reduce or replace motion-based animations. 

Use colour schemes that provide sharp contrast between text and background. They help individuals with colour blindness or low vision differentiate text from its background and make content legible.

You can use contrast checkers such as the WebAIM Contrast Checker to maintain compliance with WCAG guidelines. For a simple rule, opt for dark text on light backgrounds and vice versa.

Headlines enable users to navigate and be guided through your content with ease. For those using screen readers, they organise information, making it easier to understand.

It also helps with SEO, as headlines display the main topic of content, enabling the search engine to index the page appropriately.

To add headlines, use semantic HTML tags like <h1> and <h2> to establish a clear content hierarchy.

Keyboard accessibility benefits individuals with motor disabilities, users who rely on assistive devices, and those who may be visually impaired or unable to use a mouse. 

It involves designing your website so all interactive elements can be navigated and operated using only a keyboard. 

To implement this, make sure that ‘tabbing’ through interactive elements, such as hyperlinks and form controls, follows a logical sequence. Also, use focus indicators that highlight which element is selected. 

Ever zoomed in on a webpage, like really zoomed in – say, 200%? How did it look? Was it still easy to read, or did everything start to overlap and jumble up? 

Everyone should get the same info from your site, no matter how much they need to zoom in to see it clearly. Making your site zoom-friendly means designing with flexible layouts and scalable elements so everything looks good and works well, even at 200% zoom or more. 

While the above tips may seem easy in practice, things get in the way. If your team’s busy or just a little unsure, getting agency help simplifies the entire process.  

Working with Telescopic provides you with the support you need to make your website inclusive and user-friendly. 

We’ve previously collaborated with The Valuable 500 and The Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) to provide products and services for individuals with disabilities. 

We work alongside your team throughout.  Giving you the expertise and support to make changes without any of the technical headaches. 

Web accessibility is a fundamental aspect of a website’s build.  

It guarantees compliance with regulations and opens your business and services up to a broader audience. You improve your SEO rankings to reach more people organically and make your site more user-friendly. 

Use these tips to make your website more accessible. If you need a little more support, don’t hesitate to get in touch. 

Welcome to our look back at the 2024 tech scene.

AI got smarter, but that’s not all. Outdated systems held some businesses back. Bigger tech companies bought smaller ones, shaking things up (for the better? Let’s see …).

We’ll talk about what’s working, what’s not and where AI fits in. Stick around. There’s plenty to chew on!

AI learned patterns faster, understood language more deeply and spotted subtle trends in data. But let’s be clear. It’s still just a tool.

Though the technology itself is advanced, many businesses aren’t prepared to use it effectively. They’ve got to fix their old ways first.

Don’t get us wrong – AI can help. It can handle coding, data tasks and other mind-numbing chores. But it won’t replace real people. They still matter. Always will!

Think about nonprofits. AI can draft a decent email or tidy up a messy list. But it can’t offer the warmth and empathy these groups need to show their communities. And it certainly couldn’t understand a lot of the processes people actually go through in their day-to-day work. That would be one hell of a prompt.

Speaking of those users, not everyone wants to deal with digital forms and chatbots. Some just need a friendly human who cares. But their interaction still needs to be tracked to ensure a full picture in your reports. Providing easy to use interfaces for internal data collection is key.

Technology should serve people’s needs, not push them aside. For certain groups, a handshake or a kind word will always matter more than any digital shortcut.

The buzz around AI made many organisations realise how outdated their systems are. They can’t jump into AI if they’re still wrestling with old spreadsheets.

This isn’t just about AI. It’s about data and inputs. Even basic automation is still missing in many places. Stubborn old methods slow everything down. Meanwhile, a few simple tools could handle the dull stuff, freeing humans to focus on real work.

Automation isn’t new. It’s about using digital tools for simple tasks that don’t require human thinking. By connecting a few systems together smoothly, many common issues disappear.

Before rushing in to buy every shiny platform, take a breath. Look at your goals. Where’s the bottleneck? What’s actually slowing you down? Then pick a tool that fits, whether it’s AI or just a smarter way to handle your workflow.

In 2024, many small tech companies got snapped up by larger ones. This can unsettle groups that count on friendly, personal support – like nonprofits. They might worry that a big firm will replace their warm, human touch with scripted calls.

Why does this matter? If you need close, hands-on help, these buyouts can open up room for new providers.

For example, say a small IT firm once offered you direct support at any hour. If a big player buys them, that help might change.

However, other specialised providers often emerge to fill the gap. They focus on personal care and can adapt to your needs in ways big brands usually won’t.

This shift highlights an important point: not every task needs a giant, one-size-fits-all platform. Different tasks can be completed using different tools. As long as your systems work together nicely, there’s no need to unify it all.

Looking ahead, consider the risks of your chosen tool being sold:

• Will your data stay safe?
• Will you be stuck with a product you didn’t sign up for?
• Will your team hate the new platform?
• Will it still integrate with all your other systems?

Pick tools with those questions in mind. In 2025 and beyond, flexibility matters more than ever.

People kept talking about having “one source of truth”. They wanted to know exactly what systems they had and what data they held.

As laws changed and security concerns grew, organisations looked for a clear starting point. They didn’t want to lump all their data into one spot. Sometimes, they just needed one reliable entry point.

The standout tools were those that linked everything together. Platforms like Zapier, Power Automate and n8n had their moment. They were the glue, making all these systems talk to each other.

Any system without an open API – an easy way for other tools to connect – was in trouble. Standard integrations didn’t solve every problem and they weren’t supposed to. Custom connections, built for your unique needs, became essential. In 2024, making all your tools work together mattered more than ever.

Don’t expect a huge leap next year. Just more steady progress! Web3 crawls along, AI keeps trying to move past its initial hype. What matters is finding real uses for these new tools, not just showing off shiny gimmicks.

Pure design or development work will get even cheaper and easier. Anyone can spin up a site in minutes. The real value will lie in deciding what you actually need to do. The “what’s next?” thinking will be in demand. Businesses will pay for clear advice, not just quick fixes.

Security will remain a big deal. With so much going on in the world, keeping your data safe is not optional. We know this firsthand. After all, we’re ISO certified.

In 2025, choose tools that work for you. Ask the right questions first. Keep people at the centre, not just the tech.

Ready to take the next step? Let’s figure out what fits your needs and put it to work.

Say hello!