Creating accessible digital experiences is crucial to ensuring content reaches your audience. In this blog, learn why accessibility is so important and how Kontent.ai powers accessible experiences.
Published on Feb 26, 2025
Making content accessible isn’t just about being compliant with regulations. It’s also a strategic business imperative. The World Health Organization estimates that around 1.3 billion people worldwide (16% of the global population) experience significant disabilities. This large segment of the population is more than just a statistic; it’s a massive market opportunity and shows the responsibility we all have to build digital experiences that are inclusive, engaging, and accessible to all our audiences.
At Kontent.ai, we believe that structured content is key to creating truly accessible digital experiences. In this blog, we’ll take a look at the business case for digital accessibility, show how good content architecture naturally supports accessibility, and give practical best practice advice for content teams.
Embracing accessibility makes business sense. It grows market reach, ensures compliance with evolving standards, enhances brand reputation, and can boost ROI. Let’s see how each of those are accomplished.
Accessible content helps your content reach an audience of over 1.3 billion people. In the United States alone, more than 1 in 4 adults (approximately 28%) have a disability. Ignoring this audience means ignoring a quarter of the adults in the US, and alienating a community that deserves inclusion.
Digital accessibility mandates are tightening all around the world. Compliance with laws like the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in the U.S.A, the European Accessibility Act coming in June 2025, and guidelines like the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) is not optional. Lawsuits related to digital accessibility (over 4,000 in the USA in 2024 alone) illustrate an urgent need for compliance. By investing in accessibility, organizations are protected from legal risks while also positioning themselves as forward-thinking and inclusive.
While creating accessible digital experiences is important for reach and legal compliance, it’s also simply the right thing to do. And users notice organizations that do the right thing. Accessible content boosts user engagement and SEO, while also signaling positive brand values around diversity and inclusion. When consumers increasingly choose brands that reflect their values, accessibility becomes a key differentiator.
Accessibility delivers tangible benefits. Accessible digital experiences typically have higher engagement rates, improved usability, and better results in search rankings thanks to a semantic structure that helps both users and search engines. An Accenture study showed that companies focused on inclusion had double the net income of their peers included in their research. Every dollar invested into accessibility translates into expanded market share and enhanced customer loyalty.
Embracing digital accessibility is a win-win: it minimizes risk, enhances user satisfaction, and significantly boosts the reach of your content.
Structured content, or content that is carefully organized in a predictable, predefined way, is the foundation for accessible digital experiences. When content is structured, assistive technologies like screen readers can easily navigate that content, making it easier for users to access clear, concise, and meaningful information.
Picture two versions of the same webpage. In the first version, content is clearly organized with a hierarchy of headings, meaningful alt texts, descriptive link labels, and keyboard-friendly navigation. The second version of the page is a block of text without structure: no alt text, no headings, no link labels. The first version is better for both users, who can quickly find the content they need, and for search engines, which can more easily understand what’s on the page.
A structured approach to content helps assistive technologies perform at their highest potential. Screen readers, for example, use a well-organized content hierarchy to jump between different sections of content quickly. When using a screen reader with unstructured content, users have to listen to a lot of unnecessary details.
A CMS like Kontent.ai serves as a powerful foundation for creating accessible digital experiences across all channels. Unlike traditional CMSs that tightly couple content and presentation, Kontent.ai's headless architecture separates content from its display, giving teams unprecedented control over how content is structured, delivered, and experienced by all users.
The fundamental advantage of Kontent.ai's headless approach lies in its ability to enforce structured content without dictating presentation. This separation allows developers to implement accessible front-end experiences while content creators focus on producing well-structured information. When content is stored in a structured, presentation-independent format, it becomes inherently more adaptable to various assistive technologies.
For example, a product description stored as separate structured elements (name, features, specifications, instructions) rather than as a formatted block of HTML can be rendered appropriately for screen readers, voice assistants, braille displays, or any other consumption method, ensuring the content remains accessible regardless of how it's presented.
Content modeling capabilities in Kontent.ai enable teams to build accessibility requirements directly into their content creation processes. By designing content types with mandatory fields for elements like alt text, proper headings, and ARIA attributes, Kontent.ai helps ensure no content goes live without meeting set accessibility standards.
Content models can require:
This proactive approach prevents accessibility issues before they happen, significantly reducing compliance risks and remediation efforts.
As digital experiences expand beyond websites to include mobile apps, voice interfaces, kiosks, and emerging technologies, maintaining accessibility across channels becomes increasingly complex. Kontent.ai's channel-agnostic approach stores content in a neutral format that can be optimized for accessibility in each delivery context.
Content created once in Kontent.ai can be delivered with appropriate accessibility considerations to:
This allows organizations to maintain consistent accessibility standards across their entire digital presence without duplicating content or accessibility remediation efforts.
Kontent.ai's customizable workflows enable teams to incorporate accessibility checks as formal steps in the content lifecycle. Through these workflows, organizations can:
By embedding accessibility into standard workflows, accessibility becomes an integral part of content operations rather than an afterthought or one-time project.
One of the most valuable aspects of using Kontent.ai for accessibility is its ability to future-proof content against evolving standards and technologies. As accessibility guidelines like WCAG update or new assistive technologies emerge, content stored in Kontent.ai's structured format can be adapted without requiring complete content rewrites.
When content is separated from presentation and stored in a semantically meaningful way, organizations gain the agility to respond to new accessibility requirements by updating delivery mechanisms rather than rebuilding their entire content foundation. This reduces the long-term cost of accessibility maintenance and helps ensure sustainable compliance.
Making content accessible doesn’t need to be difficult: it just requires some planning and consideration when creating content. Use these tips to get started, or read our full accessibility guide for an even more in-depth look.
Use proper headings tags (H1, H2, H3, etc.) to create a logical content hierarchy. These headings shouldn’t be used for stylistic purposes, but for conveying meaning instead. This is good for both SEO and for assistive technologies.
All images and multimedia elements should have descriptive alt texts that describe what’s in the asset. This alt text is critical for users who rely on screen readers. Need help creating the alt text? Kontent.ai can help you tag and describe images automatically.
When creating links, make sure the text of the link is descriptive. Avoid generic phrases like “click here”. Explain what the user fill find when they click on the link. This helps improve navigability and builds user trust.
Content reuse is an excellent way to keep content consistent across platforms and channels. When reusing content, make sure to keep a consistent structure to preserve accessibility standards.
Design content experiences with mobile users in mind. Make touch targets appropriately sized, and check to make sure navigation is intuitive, even on smaller screens.
This isn’t an exhaustive list, but adopting these best practices is a great way to help make content accessible while improving the user experience for everyone.
Succeeding in creating accessible content long-term requires the right platform and a solid strategy. With the platform in place, let’s look at how the strategy might shape up.
Successful accessibility initiatives are a team effort. Make sure to include:
Ongoing training sessions and workshops keep teams updated on the latest guidelines and best practices. Regular audits with both automated tools and manual testing with assistive technologies are crucial for seeing if accessibility efforts are working.
Integrate accessibility checks directly into the content creation workflow process. With flexible workflows in Kontent.ai, an accessibility check can be added as a mandatory workflow step.
By working to put an accessible content strategy in place, it becomes much easier to guarantee that all published content is accessible content.
Digital accessibility is a constantly evolving field. Some exciting recent developments include AI-driven accessibility testing tools and inclusive design frameworks that take a wide range of user needs into account.
At Kontent.ai, we’re fully committed to supporting accessible content creation. We’re constantly improving our own platform to improve accessibility, and will be fully compliant with WCAG AA. Users can expect some changes to our platform that will make it even more accessible, including upgrades to our in-app navigation that make it easier for all users to find the content they need.
Ready to start making more accessible content? Get in touch with us today and schedule a demo to see how easy it is to create, maintain, and publish accessible content with Kontent.ai.
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