Arts and culture websites ‘among worst for accessibility’

A new report has revealed museum, theatre and gallery websites rank among the worst performing in terms of meeting accessibility needs.

The 2025 WebAIM Million Report, which assessed the accessibility of the one million most visited websites globally, found arts and culture sites have an average of 54.1 accessibility errors per homepage.

This average is 6.1% higher than the previous year. It means arts and culture websites are lagging behind most other sectors, as accessibility errors decreased by 10.3% across all analysed websites.

The most common barriers included low-contrast text (found on 79.1% of pages), missing alternative text for images (55.5%), and unlabelled form inputs (48.2%).

The report says such errors make it difficult for disabled users to browse event listings, purchase tickets and access cultural content online.

“Cultural organisations are built on the principles of inclusion and access, yet many are unintentionally locking out disabled visitors from their digital spaces,” commented Hilary Stephenson, Managing Director of Nexer Digital, a research, design and development agency.

“While there has been progress, change is happening too slowly. Many of the most common accessibility issues are simple to fix, yet they remain widespread.”

Stephenson also urged arts and culture organisations to improve their digital services ahead of the enforcement of the European Accessibility Act. Due to come into force in June, the act will require businesses to meet strict digital accessibility standards.

“There are an estimated 16 million disabled people in the UK, with a combined spending power of £274bn per year, yet many continue to face barriers when online,” Stephenson added.

“Organisations need to stop treating accessibility as an afterthought and start embedding it into their design and development processes from the outset.”