On June 28, 2025, the new accessibility law (the European Accessibility Act) will come into effect. The law requires, among other things, e-commerce services to be digitally accessible. All ticket shops are also covered by this law.
Making a website as sustainable and accessible as possible can take up to a year. Therefore, it is high time for cultural institutions to take action if they haven't already. Start with a quick scan (opens in new tab) to identify areas for improvement and then conduct a thorough accessibility audit. Building knowledge within your team, both for web editors and web developers, takes time but is invaluable to ensure your website is usable for everyone, regardless of limitations.
5 tips for an accessible website
An accessible website not only broadens your audience but also contributes to a more inclusive online community. Here are five practical tips to achieve this:
- Ensure a screen reader-friendly design.*
- Provide videos and images with accessible metadata with good alt texts.
- Use a clear heading structure for a scannable page.
- Replace heavy, and often inaccessible, PDFs with web pages for better SEO, accessibility, and sustainability.
- Limit embedded content and third-party scripts. For example, instead of embedding a Spotify playlist on your page, replace it with a link to improve load time and digital accessibility (as embedded content is harder for screen readers to process).
*People who are visually impaired or blind navigate online using a screen reader app. This app converts text and images into spoken text or braille. Navigation is done via a keyboard. A good heading structure, consistent design, and clear alt texts contribute to a screen reader-friendly design.
3 tips for a sustainable site
In 2019, The Shift Project (opens in new tab) calculated that the internet (websites, browsing, sending emails) accounts for 3.7% of all global CO2 emissions.
A sustainable approach reduces the energy consumed by data centers, servers, and end-user devices. Make your website as sustainable as possible by minimizing energy consumption and opting for green hosting solutions. Your web agency or developer can help with this, but there are also steps you can take yourself:
- Limit embedded content and avoid heavy PDFs.
- Compress images and minimize unnecessary dynamic content for faster loading times and a better user experience.
- Use tools like Ecograder (opens in new tab) and Website Carbon Calculator (opens in new tab) to check if your website is optimized for sustainability, and pay attention to unused code, lazy loading, and the eco-friendliness of your hosting provider.
By focusing on both accessibility and sustainability, you create a website that is not only usable for everyone but also contributes to a more environmentally conscious online experience.
DEN's own experiences
Optimizing the accessibility of our own website resulted in an accessibility label B after technical research by Accessibility (opens in new tab) and user testing. We aim for label A and continuously improve our site with our web developers and web editors. We asked Digihobbit to examine our website for sustainability and discovered that optimizations for accessibility and sustainability complement each other and do not conflict. Many accessibility improvements also help make your website more sustainable. Double win!
More articles per topic
