What Happens If Your Site Isn't Accessible to Screen Readers?

A site can look completely polished and still be genuinely unusable for a visitor relying on a screen reader — and because that visitor rarely emails to complain, the problem stays invisible to the business.

What a screen reader actually does

It reads page content aloud, relying on the underlying structure — proper headings, labeled form fields, meaningful alt text — to make sense of what's actually on the page, since it can't rely on how things visually look.

What actually breaks without that in mind

• Images with no alt text get skipped, or just announced as "image", with no useful information
• Form fields with no label leave a visitor guessing what they're supposed to type
• Buttons that are just an icon, with no accessible name behind them, become unusable

The customers this might be quietly costing you

Screen reader use isn't rare, and an inaccessible site quietly turns those visitors away without it ever showing up as a complaint — the same invisible-problem pattern covered in signs your website is costing you customers.

You don't need to overhaul everything at once

A few foundational wins — proper heading structure, real alt text on meaningful images, and labeled form fields — cover a large share of the problem without needing a full rebuild.