From 28 June 2025 the European Accessibility Act (EAA) turns digital accessibility from a nice‑to‑have into a legal must for most Irish businesses that sell or serve customers online in the EU. Miss the deadline and you risk fines and lost trust, but acting now also makes your site faster, easier to use and open to millions of extra customers.
Who needs to act?
Online shops and marketplaces
Banks and other financial services
Video‑on‑demand and streaming platforms
Public‑transport ticketing and journey planners
E‑book stores and online publishers
Internet, mobile and web‑chat providers
Small but important note – if your company has fewer than ten staff and under €2 million annual turnover you are exempt, but making your site accessible still brings business benefits.
What counts as “accessible”?
In plain language your website or app should:
Work well with screen‑reading software
Be usable with only a keyboard or switch device
Use colour combinations that everyone can read
Provide text for images and captions for video
Give clear, consistent headings, links and error messages
The official rulebook points to an international standard called WCAG. Aim for its “AA” level and you will be on solid ground.
A five‑step action plan for non‑technical teams
Write a quick inventory – list every website, app, PDF and video you show to customers, plus the company that looks after each one.
Carry out easy self‑checks – using only the Tab key, make sure you can reach every link or button. Hover your mouse over images: if no helpful text appears, note it down. Turn on captions in any video and see whether dialogue is covered.
Fix what’s in your control – add descriptive captions or alt text when you upload images, switch to template colours that pass a free online contrast checker, and use built‑in heading styles instead of just bold text so pages have a clear outline.
Document your effort – keep a simple spreadsheet of pages checked, fixes made and screenshots showing the before‑and‑after state. This proves you are making genuine progress.
Prepare for the experts – when you speak to a developer or agency, share your spreadsheet and ask: “What will it cost to fix the remaining items, and how will you prove they pass WCAG AA?” Having clear notes puts you in control of scope and price.
How Brandstart can help
Site check‑up – we scan and manually test your main pages, then hand you a clear to‑do list ranked by impact.
Tailored fixes – after assessing your project we schedule and implement the necessary code, theme, plugin and document updates, aiming for compliance without a costly rebuild whenever feasible.
Design tidy‑up – we polish colours, spacing and navigation so every component looks on‑brand and passes readability tests.
Works with any platform – WordPress, Drupal, Shopify, React, bespoke back ends – we have seen them all.
Teach your team – short, practical sessions show writers, designers and developers how to keep content accessible.
Monthly monitoring – checks to spot any new issues, and our team can make sure ad landing pages stay compliant too.
Let Brandstart work with you to remove barriers, welcome every visitor and keep your site confidently compliant well beyond the deadline. For more information, arrange a short discovery call with our team.
