CerebralCheck · Firm guide
An accessible website gives small professional firms a clearer way to serve clients.
Whether you are an accounting practice, law firm, consultancy, architect, or another small service business, your website should help people understand your services, ask for help, and use your information with fewer barriers. Use this plain-English guide as a practical review list.
Four places to look first
Make it easier for the right client to take the next step.
These checks are small enough to add to a regular website review and concrete enough to discuss with whoever updates your firm’s site.
01
A prospective client should be able to understand what your firm does and find the right next step without hunting through the site.
- Use a clear page title and headings that describe your services, process, industries, or areas of practice.
- Give links descriptive names such as “See our estate-planning services” instead of vague labels like “Learn more.”
- Keep essential service details, hours, locations, and contact options in text rather than only inside an image or downloadable file.
- Keep navigation in a consistent order and make it easy to return to the main content on long pages.
02
A contact or intake form is often the first real conversation with a new client. Make each question and response easy to understand.
- Give every field a visible label, and explain the format for details such as dates, phone numbers, or preferred contact times.
- Identify required fields before submission and describe errors in plain language next to the field that needs attention.
- Use specific button text such as “Request a consultation” or “Send intake details” so the outcome is clear.
- After submission, confirm what happened and explain when or how someone should expect a response.
03
Engagement letters, checklists, applications, and other documents should remain useful to clients who cannot read them in the same way you do.
- Prefer accessible HTML for information people need to read or act on, rather than making a PDF the only way to reach it.
- Give documents a meaningful title, logical headings, readable text, and links that say what file a visitor will open.
- Check that PDFs are not image-only scans and that important tables, fields, and reading order make sense with assistive technology.
- Offer an accessible alternative or a way to request help when a document cannot be made usable for every client.
04
Someone should be able to move through your navigation, forms, dialogs, and calls to action without needing a mouse or touch screen.
- Press Tab through the page and check that focus moves in a sensible order and is always visibly marked.
- Make menus, accordions, dialogs, date pickers, and form controls operable with a keyboard.
- Check that a visitor can close an open menu or dialog and is not trapped inside an interactive element.
- Keep the visible focus indicator strong enough to see against the page background and interactive controls.
A clear note on scope
A scan is a starting point, not a certification.
Automated scans find only some accessibility issues. They do not guarantee legal compliance, and they cannot understand every interaction, content choice, or real client experience.
Treat a scan as a first look: use it to find possible issues and choose what to review next. Pair it with keyboard testing, content and document review, and feedback from people who use different access needs. CerebralCheck does not certify a website as accessible.
Get a free first look at your websiteA practical review path
Turn one scan into a short list of next steps.
- 01
Scan a public URL
Use the free scan for a first look at supported findings on the page you want to review.
- 02
Review the journey
Follow the service, contact, document, and keyboard paths as a client would.
- 03
Fix and recheck
Make the clearest change first, then review again after the site is updated.
Ready when you are
Give your firm’s website a clearer first look.
Enter a public URL to run the free scan, then use this guide to decide what deserves a closer human review.
Run the free scan