Wooden Hearing Loop Sign

Accessibility at Cherry Grove Craft: Why and How We Reviewed Our Website

In 2026 we reviewed the Cherry Grove Craft website against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 at Level AA, published an accessibility statement in June, and began fixing what the review found. We did it because about one in four people in the UK report a disability, we make accessibility signs ourselves, and a website people can't use is a shop they can't buy from. This post covers how we went about it, what has been fixed since, and what still needs work.

The short version of where things stand is in our accessibility statement, which lists the known issues and how to ask for information in another format. This post is the background to it.

What web accessibility means

Web accessibility means building a website that as many people as possible can use, however they use it. Some people use a screen reader that reads the page aloud. Some navigate with a keyboard instead of a mouse. Some zoom in a long way or use high-contrast settings, and some find dense, cluttered layouts hard to process. Many more have a temporary or situational difficulty: a broken wrist, a cracked phone screen, bright sunlight on a display.

The international standard is WCAG, now at version 2.2. Level AA is the level most organisations work towards, and it's the one we have set ourselves.

Why we did it

One in four people in the UK are disabled, according to the government's Family Resources Survey for 2024 to 2025. Some of the people ordering from us, and some of the people their orders are for, will be among them. A website that doesn't work with a screen reader or a keyboard turns those people away before they reach the basket.

There's also a particular reason for us. We make accessibility signs, such as hearing loop signs and accessible toilet signs. It would make little sense to sell signs that tell visitors what support a building offers while running a website that disabled customers can't get through.

Cherry Grove Craft is a one-person business. I'm Pete, and I make every order and look after this website myself. There's no developer or accessibility team here, so the approach has been to check things properly, fix what can be fixed directly, and be honest about the rest.

What the law says

We make signs and gifts. We are not lawyers, and this is not legal advice. In England, Scotland and Wales, the Equality Act 2010 requires anyone providing a service to the public to make reasonable adjustments for disabled people, and that is widely understood to include websites. The Act doesn't name a technical standard for private businesses, but WCAG is the benchmark generally used to judge whether a website is accessible.

The European Accessibility Act, which took effect in June 2025, covers businesses selling to consumers in EU countries. We don't currently ship to EU countries, so it wasn't the reason for this work. Legal duty isn't the main reason in any case.

How we reviewed the site

Before publishing our accessibility statement in June 2026, we went through the website's structure against WCAG 2.2 Level AA: image alt text, heading order, the skip link, page language, link wording, and the parts of each page that come from the theme or from apps rather than from us. This was a structural review carried out in-house, not a professional audit, which is why the statement doesn't claim conformance.

What was already working

Image alt text. Every product image should have alt text describing what is actually in the photo, not just repeating the product name. Writing it across hundreds of products was the biggest single job. When we re-checked on 14 October 2026, 14 of more than 5,800 product images, across 7 products, were still missing alt text.

Headings. Our pages, collections and blog posts use headings in a logical order (H1, H2, H3), so screen reader users can jump through a long page by heading instead of listening to every word. Product descriptions use short paragraphs and proper lists rather than walls of text.

Skip link and page language. Every page has a "Skip to content" link that lets keyboard users jump past the navigation, and every page declares its language so screen readers pronounce the text correctly.

What we have fixed since

The announcement bar. The bar at the top of every page used to contain emoji. Screen readers read emoji out by name, so a star and a green leaf were announced as "star" and "leaf fluttering in wind" in the middle of a sentence. The bar is now plain text.

What still needs work

  • Duplicate navigation. The main menu is rendered twice in the page code, once for desktop and once for mobile, so screen readers can meet both sets of links. This comes from the Dawn theme, and we're looking at how to hide the inactive copy from assistive technology.
  • Colour contrast. We haven't yet checked every colour combination against WCAG's 4.5:1 minimum contrast ratio for normal text.
  • Third-party apps. The logo upload, personalisation fields and reviews are provided by other developers' apps, and we can't fully control how accessible they are. We're reviewing them and will raise accessibility with the app providers.
  • Product pages. Some screen readers announce prices twice, and the "sold out or unavailable" status on size and attachment options isn't always announced clearly.
  • Missing alt text. The 14 product images mentioned above.

What we plan to do next

  • Complete a full colour contrast check and fix any failures
  • Resolve the duplicate navigation in the theme
  • Test the full purchase journey, including checkout, with a screen reader and with a keyboard alone
  • Review our third-party apps for accessibility
  • Work towards a formal WCAG 2.2 Level AA conformance claim, backed by a professional audit

How to tell us about a problem

If you're having difficulty using any part of the website, or you'd like information in a different format, please contact us. We aim to respond within one working day. If you find a problem that isn't listed in our accessibility statement, we want to hear about it: we can't fix what we don't know is broken.

Accessibility isn't a project with an end date. We'll keep the statement up to date as issues are fixed and new ones are found.

Frequently asked questions

Does the Cherry Grove Craft website meet WCAG 2.2 Level AA?

Not yet formally. We are working towards WCAG 2.2 Level AA, but we don't claim conformance at any level because the site hasn't had a full professional audit. Known issues are listed in our accessibility statement.

Why does a small workshop worry about website accessibility?

One in four people in the UK are disabled, according to the Family Resources Survey for 2024 to 2025. A website that doesn't work with a screen reader or a keyboard shuts those customers out. We also make accessibility signs, so we want our own website to meet the same standard of care.

How can I get information from the website in a different format?

Use our contact page to tell us which page or product you were looking at and what you need. We aim to respond within one working day and will provide the information in an alternative format where we can.

Where can I find accessibility signs for my own building?

Our accessibility signs collection includes hearing loop signs and accessible toilet signs. Our guide to which accessibility signs a business needs explains what goes where.

Also see

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