--- title: "Web Accessibility in Québec: What a Small Business Should Aim For" description: "Web accessibility in Québec for a small business: what WCAG 2.1 asks for, plus alt text, colour contrast and keyboard focus you can check yourself." canonical: "https://socialinfluencebuilder.com/en/blog/web-accessibility-quebec-small-business/" lastmod: "2026-09-28T14:43:43+00:00" lang: "en-CA" format: "markdown" --- HTML version: # Web Accessibility in Québec: What a Small Business Should Aim For > **Archive note.** This article describes the situation as it stood when it was published. The rules, tools and features it mentions may have changed since. Check the current information with the official source before acting. Web accessibility in Québec: it comes down to building a small-business site that works for everyone, including people who use a screen reader, a keyboard, or an older phone on a slow connection. I work with local businesses on ads and SEO, and I keep running into the same gaps: missing alt text, low contrast, and menus that only respond to a mouse. Here is what I tell owners in Mascouche and around Montréal to fix first, without hiring a specialist. ## Web accessibility in Québec and what it means for a small-business website Web accessibility in Québec means your website is usable by visitors who cannot see your images, cannot use a mouse, or are reading on a small screen. There is no private-sector accessibility law here at the moment. The Québec government's own SGQRI standard applies to public bodies, not to a corner bakery or a dental clinic, so the reason to do this work is real customers, not a legal requirement. In practice, that means your images carry alt text so someone using a screen reader knows what they show. It means your colours have enough contrast, your buttons are easy to reach, and your text still makes sense when it is read aloud. Most of it overlaps with plain [user experience](/en/glossary/#ux), done with more people in mind. The benchmark most people point to is WCAG 2.1. It is not a law, but it is the standard accessibility guidance is built around, so it is worth knowing what it asks for. ## WCAG 2.1: the current standard and which parts apply to a small site WCAG 2.1 is the current version of the international Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, and a small business only needs a handful of its rules. Aim for Level AA and focus on the checkpoints that touch a typical small-business site. Colour contrast is the first. Your text needs to stand out clearly against its background, and light grey text on white, which I see constantly, usually does not. Keyboard access is the second. A visitor should be able to tab through your menu, forms, and buttons without ever touching a mouse. The third is the focus indicator, the little outline that shows where you are on the page. Do not let a theme strip it out for the sake of a cleaner look. ## Alt text and image descriptions that actually help Alt text is a short written description of an image that a screen reader reads aloud, and it also gives search engines something to work with. I tell clients to describe what matters in the photo, not every detail. For a bakery, "chocolate croissant on a wooden table" beats "image123.jpg" or "bakery item". Skip openers like "picture of", since the screen reader already announces that it is an image. If a picture is purely decorative, like a background swirl, leave the alt text empty so it gets skipped. For a chart or a graph, put the key point in the alt text or in the paragraph beside it. Good alt text helps real people, and it is quick to add once it becomes a habit. ## Colour contrast and text that can be read at a glance Colour contrast passes when your text is dark or light enough to stand out clearly against its background, and you can check it for free. I plug my text colour and background colour into the WebAIM Contrast Checker, and it tells me right away whether the pair meets WCAG Level AA. If it fails, I darken the text or lighten the background until the numbers work. ### Checking contrast without a paid tool Free online checkers and browser tools tell you whether a colour pair passes, so you never need to buy software. The WebAIM Contrast Checker is the one I recommend most: type in your text colour and your background colour, and it returns the ratio and whether it passes AA. Chrome also shows a contrast ratio in its developer tools. Right-click any text, choose Inspect, and look for the ratio in the colour picker. It takes a moment to learn where to look, after which checking a page is fast. ## Keyboard navigation and visible focus on forms and menus Keyboard navigation has to work on your forms and menus because some visitors browse without a mouse. I test [every site I build](/en/conception-web/) by unplugging the mouse and pressing Tab. If I cannot reach every link, button, and form field in a logical order, that is a problem I fix before launch. Visible focus matters just as much. Browsers normally draw a highlighted outline around whatever is selected, but some designers remove it to look tidy. Without it, a keyboard user has no idea where they are on the page. Check your dropdown menus too. They should open and close with Enter or Escape, not only on a mouse hover. ## Manual accessibility check a business owner can run A manual accessibility check is a short hands-on pass you can run yourself, no developer required. Sit down at your own site with a coffee and work through these steps. | What to test | How to do it | What you are looking for | | --- | --- | --- | | Keyboard only | Unplug your mouse, use Tab and Enter | Can you reach every link and button? | | Zoom in | Press Ctrl and + a few times | Does text stay readable, with no overlap? | | Images | Right-click, view page source | Does each image have alt text? | | Forms | Fill one out with Tab only | Do the fields have visible labels? | If any answer is no, note it and fix it before the page goes live. Whether to hire help depends on the problem. Alt text, colour contrast, and heading order are things an owner can fix with free checkers. Deeper issues, like screen reader behaviour on a complex form, are worth handing to a specialist, so you save money on the basics and pay only for the tricky parts. ## Accessibility checklist before the next site update An accessibility checklist before a site update keeps you from undoing the fixes you just made. I keep mine short on purpose, because a long checklist gets skipped. Confirm every new image has real alt text, not a filename. Check that headings follow a logical order, with one H1 per page. Tab through the new page and confirm you can reach every link and button without a mouse. Check colour contrast on any new buttons or banners. Watch any new video and confirm captions are turned on. If you added a form, test it with a screen reader, or ask someone who uses one to try it. ## Go further - **Service:** [Website design in Montreal built to convert visitors into customers](https://socialinfluencebuilder.com/en/conception-web/) - **Case study:** [Institut V Esthétique](https://socialinfluencebuilder.com/en/institut-v-esthetique/) - **Glossary:** [Digital marketing glossary: UX (User Experience)](https://socialinfluencebuilder.com/en/glossary/#ux)