If accessibility has never really come up in your work, that isn’t because you’re careless.

It’s because almost nobody teaches it — not the courses, not the diplomas, and definitely not the platforms we all build on.

In this episode I’m joined by Rachel Mess of The Inclusive Design Company, a website designer and trainer who specialises in accessible websites, and we get into what accessibility actually means, why it matters commercially as well as ethically, and the handful of things that fix most of it.

We get into:

  • Why accessibility is missing from almost every web design course and platform
  • The one issue that causes more accessibility failures than anything else online
  • Why that drag-and-drop FAQ dropdown might be unreadable to a screen reader — and to Google
  • Holly’s pet hate: emojis used as bullet points, and what they sound like out loud
  • What happens when industry experts quietly ignore best practice
  • Why accessibility is the infrastructure that makes inclusion possible
  • How “let the website breathe” is an accessibility decision, not just a design one
  • The argument that finally gets a reluctant client on your side
  • Why “click here” is bad for screen readers and bad for SEO
  • The free tools to run on every site before you hand it over
  • If you want websites that more people can actually use, buy from and get in touch through, this one will give you the basics and the language to sell them.

Find Rachel at The Inclusive Design Company or on LinkedIn

And here’s the link if you want to learn more about my brilliant podcast producer, Neal Veglio who edited and produced this episode, taking it from 90 minutes of chat to a more listenable, 30 minutes.

Want to get in touch? Click here to email me, or visit my contact page to leave a voicemail.

Timestamped Summary (so you can skip to the relevant bits):

00:00 Meet Rachel Mess, accessible web design specialist

01:08 How Rachel got into accessibility

01:50 Why accessibility never came up in her training

02:46 “I can’t charge for a website somebody can’t access”

03:09 Web design is a self-taught industry

03:40 Why the platforms are part of the problem

05:21 Accessibility has to be front of mind as you design

05:39 Colour contrast is the biggest issue on the internet

06:14 Dropdowns, div blocks and what a screen reader hears

07:03 If Google can’t read it, nobody sees your content

07:45 Holly’s pet hate: emojis as bullet points

09:07 When industry experts quietly ignore best practice

10:57 Lived experience is good for business

12:49 Consulting with Diversity Scotland

13:38 DEI, blog images and seeing yourself on a website

14:44 Accessibility is the infrastructure inclusion sits on

17:32 Accessibility in your blog posts

17:58 Let the website breathe

20:46 How to bring a reluctant client round

21:32 Why Shopify sites keep coming up

22:42 The contrast checker every platform should build in

24:06 Why “click here” is a problem

25:30 Stop stuffing keywords into alt tags

26:29 Test with Lighthouse and WAVE

27:36 Graphic designers are not website designers

29:04 Where to find Rachel

Want to see an outtake from the episode? 

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*from episode 24 onwards – please don’t judge my lovely podcast producer for the absolute hash up of my self-edited initial episodes 🫣