Website Accessibility for Maritime Companies: Meeting International Standards

Maritime companies operate in one of the most internationally regulated industries on the planet. Compliance frameworks govern everything from vessel safety to environmental standards, cargo classification to crew welfare. Website accessibility should sit on that same list. When your clients include port authorities, government bodies and public sector organisations, the websites they interact with are expected to meet accessibility standards that go well beyond a basic screen reader check. For shipping businesses looking to maintain credibility across international markets, website accessibility for shipping and maritime companies now includes making your website usable for everyone, regardless of their abilities or the technology they use to browse.

Web accessibility is not a niche concern. Across the UK, the Equality Act 2010 places legal obligations on businesses providing services to the public. The Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations 2018 set explicit requirements for any organisation delivering digital services connected to government or public bodies. Internationally, WCAG 2.2 has become the reference point that procurement teams, regulatory bodies and industry partners use to assess whether a website meets acceptable standards. Maritime companies that work with regulated organisations need to meet these benchmarks or risk being excluded from procurement processes entirely.

What Web Accessibility Means for Maritime Websites

Web accessibility is about making sure your website can be used by people with a range of disabilities, including visual impairments, hearing difficulties, motor disabilities and cognitive conditions. In practical terms, that means a person using a screen reader should be able to navigate your vessel services pages and understand what you offer. Someone who cannot use a mouse should be able to complete an enquiry form using keyboard navigation alone. A person with low vision should be able to read your content without the text and background colours blending together.

For maritime websites, this extends to the specific types of content the industry publishes. Technical specifications, regulatory documents, port schedules, vessel tracking data. All of it needs to be accessible. A PDF specification sheet that a screen reader cannot parse is not just inconvenient. It is a barrier that prevents a segment of your potential audience from evaluating your services. The same applies to interactive elements like vessel tracking maps, booking systems and document download portals.

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 set out the specific criteria that websites need to meet. The guidelines are organised around four principles: perceivable, operable, understandable and technically resilient (POUR). Each principle contains testable success criteria at three conformance levels: A, AA and AAA. For most maritime businesses, AA conformance is the standard that procurement bodies and regulators expect.

Legal Requirements That Affect Maritime Companies

The legal obligations around web accessibility are not theoretical. They carry enforcement mechanisms that maritime companies need to take seriously.

In the UK, the Equality Act 2010 requires that service providers make reasonable adjustments to ensure disabled people are not placed at a substantial disadvantage. Your website counts as part of your service provision. The Equality Act 2010 does not specify technical standards, but courts and regulators use WCAG 2.2 AA as the benchmark for what constitutes a reasonable level of accessibility.

For maritime companies working with UK public sector organisations, the requirements are more explicit. The Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations 2018 require public sector websites and applications to meet WCAG 2.1 AA. If your company provides services to port authorities, government maritime agencies or public sector logistics bodies, your website may be evaluated against these standards during procurement. Failing to meet them can result in your bid being excluded before it reaches the technical evaluation stage.

Across Europe, the European Accessibility Act comes into effect in June 2025. This extends accessibility requirements to private sector organisations in ways that will affect shipping companies serving European markets. Maritime businesses with operations across multiple jurisdictions face a patchwork of accessibility regulations that are converging towards a common baseline: WCAG 2.2 AA.

WCAG 2.2 Requirements That Matter Most for Maritime Sites

Not every WCAG criterion carries the same weight for maritime websites. Some apply universally across all industries while others are particularly relevant to the types of content and functionality that shipping companies publish.

Colour contrast is one of the most common failures on maritime sites. Many shipping companies use brand colours that do not meet the minimum contrast ratios specified by WCAG. Blue text on a dark background, light grey text on white, low-contrast navigation elements. These affect readability for anyone with low vision, colour blindness or who is simply viewing your site on a screen with glare. The WebAIM contrast checker is a free tool that lets you test whether your colour combinations meet the WCAG requirement of 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text.

Keyboard navigation is another area where maritime sites frequently fall short. Interactive elements like vessel tracking maps, port schedule filters, dropdown menus and booking forms need to be fully operable using only a keyboard. This benefits not just users with motor disabilities but also power users who prefer keyboard shortcuts and professionals using assistive technologies. Our accessibility services include keyboard navigation testing across all interactive features of a maritime website.

For multilingual maritime websites, the language of parts criterion is especially relevant. If your site contains content in multiple languages, each section needs the correct language attribute in the HTML so that screen readers pronounce words correctly. A Dutch port name embedded in English text needs a lang=”nl” attribute, otherwise assistive technology will attempt to read it as English.

Accessible Documents and Technical Content

Maritime companies publish a significant amount of content in document formats: PDF specifications, safety data sheets, compliance certificates, operational manuals. These documents carry the same accessibility requirements as your web pages. A PDF that has no heading structure, no reading order and no alternative text for images is inaccessible to screen reader users.

The UK government’s guidance on accessible publishing recommends HTML as the default format over PDF wherever possible. For maritime companies, this means reconsidering whether technical specifications and service documents need to be PDFs at all. Publishing the same information as structured web content makes it accessible by default. When PDFs are necessary, they need to be tagged with proper heading structures, reading order and alternative text.

<!-- Accessible table with scope attributes and caption -->
<table>
  <caption>Fleet Vessel Specifications</caption>
  <thead>
    <tr>
      <th scope="col">Vessel Name</th>
      <th scope="col">Type</th>
      <th scope="col">DWT</th>
    </tr>
  </thead>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <th scope="row" lang="no">Fjord Spirit</th>
      <td>Chemical Tanker</td>
      <td>45,000</td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

<!-- Language attribute for foreign terms in English content -->
<p>The vessel <span lang="no">Fjord Spirit</span>
  operates under the <span lang="de">Germanischer Lloyd</span>
  classification society.</p>

Data tables in maritime documents deserve particular attention. Vessel specifications, port schedules and tariff tables all use tabular data. Accessible tables need proper header cells, caption elements and scope attributes so that screen readers can communicate the relationship between headers and data cells. A specification table without these structural elements becomes meaningless to someone who cannot see the visual layout.

How Accessibility Affects Maritime Procurement

Procurement teams at regulated organisations increasingly include accessibility as an evaluation criterion. Port authorities, government maritime agencies and public sector logistics bodies are required to ensure that the digital services they use meet accessibility standards. If your website does not meet WCAG 2.2 AA, you may be screened out of procurement processes before your technical capabilities are even considered.

This goes beyond your main website. Procurement evaluations may also assess client portals, document management interfaces, booking systems and any other digital touchpoint that forms part of your service delivery. Every digital interface your clients interact with needs to meet accessibility standards. Our web design services build accessibility into maritime websites from the planning stage rather than treating it as a retrospective fix.

The reputational aspect matters too. A shipping company that publishes an accessibility statement demonstrating WCAG 2.2 AA conformance signals operational maturity. It tells procurement teams that you take regulatory compliance seriously across all areas of your business, not just the ones that have traditionally been subject to maritime regulation.

Practical Steps for Maritime Companies

Improving website accessibility does not require starting from scratch. Most maritime websites can make significant progress through a structured audit and remediation process.

Start with an accessibility audit. This involves testing your website against WCAG 2.2 criteria using a combination of automated tools and manual testing. Automated tools catch structural issues like missing alt text, contrast failures and form label problems. Manual testing covers the things automation misses: keyboard navigation flow, screen reader compatibility, cognitive accessibility and the usability of interactive features.

Prioritise the fixes by impact. Colour contrast issues affect the largest number of users and are typically straightforward to resolve. Missing alt text on images is another high-impact fix. Keyboard navigation problems on interactive elements like vessel tracking maps or booking forms require more development work but have a significant effect on usability for disabled users.

Publish an accessibility statement. This is a public document that describes the current accessibility status of your website, identifies any known issues and explains how users can report problems or request alternative formats. For maritime companies working with UK public sector organisations, an accessibility statement is a regulatory requirement under the Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations 2018. Even for private sector maritime businesses, it demonstrates a commitment to accessibility that procurement teams notice.

Ongoing Accessibility Maintenance

Accessibility is not a one-off project. Every new page, every content update and every new feature introduced to your website needs to maintain accessibility standards. Maritime companies that fix their accessibility issues once and then allow standards to drift as new content is published will find themselves back where they started within months.

Build accessibility checks into your content publishing workflow. Anyone adding content to the website should know how to write proper alt text, create accessible document structures and maintain heading hierarchies. Our SEO services overlap with accessibility work in this area because the same structural principles that make content accessible also make it easier for search engines to understand and index.

Schedule regular audits. A quarterly review of new content and features against WCAG criteria catches issues before they accumulate. Annual full audits provide a baseline measurement of conformance and identify any areas where standards have slipped. For maritime companies with large, content-heavy websites, this ongoing maintenance is what separates genuine accessibility from a one-time compliance exercise.

Web accessibility for maritime companies is not an optional extra. It is a regulatory requirement for those working with public sector organisations, a procurement criterion for regulated industries and a signal of operational maturity that international clients notice. Meeting WCAG 2.2 AA is the minimum standard that maritime businesses should be working towards.

The maritime industry is familiar with compliance frameworks. SOLAS, MARPOL, ISPS Code, ISM Code. Adding WCAG 2.2 to that list is not a stretch. The principles are well documented, the testing methods are established and the business benefits extend from procurement eligibility to search engine performance. For shipping companies that want their digital presence to match the rigour of their operational compliance, website accessibility is the place to start.