Most of the web was not built with my dad in mind
My dad recently went blind. It is still new to all of us and watching someone you love relearn the ordinary world is a humbling thing. He is one of the most capable people I know, so this is not a sad story. But he is rebuilding how he does almost everything and a surprising amount of that happens through a screen he can no longer see.
What has genuinely changed things is his phone. Paired with the AI assistants that now live on it, it has become a real lifeline. He can search for something the moment he wants it. He can keep up with the news so he is not left out when friends are over. He bought my mum her birthday present this year, on his own, which mattered to him more than the present did.
But sitting with him has also taught me what most websites sound like from the other side. He does not see a page, he hears it, read out one piece at a time in whatever order the builder left behind. Made with care, that order makes sense and the assistant flies through it. Made carelessly, it falls apart. A button announced only as "button". An image with no description, so a whole meaning is simply lost. A checkout that fails somewhere he cannot find. The clever assistant in his pocket can only work with what the site gives it and a careless site gives it almost nothing.
That is the part people miss about accessibility. They hear a compliance word, a box to tick and it sounds like admin. It is not admin. It is whether my dad can buy the gift himself or has to ask for help again.
I will not pretend the web is solved. It is still harder than it should be and there is far more to do. But the small part I can do, I do gladly. Knowing a site I built read sensibly and let someone like my dad get a hard daily task done a little easier is the best reason I have found to build the way I do.
So when I say I build to a standard as a matter of course, no asterisk, no upsell, this is what I mean. My dad should be able to use the things I make. So should yours.