WebSite X5 2025.1: A Website for Everyone
Published by Incomedia in WebSite X5 News · Tuesday 18 Mar 2025 · 9:45
We’ve always said it: WebSite X5 is designed to give everyone - even those with no technical or programming skills - the possibility of creating their own appealing and functional website.
But now, our goal has expanded and become even more ambitious:
Making it possible to create websites for everyone.
What do these two simple words - “for everyone” - mean? They refer to web content accessibility, which is now more relevant than ever, especially with the upcoming enforcement of the European Accessibility Act (EAA).
How does this broader perspective take shape? Thanks to a thorough review of the code generated by WebSite X5 and the introduction of some specific features. Improvements are now available in the new version 2025.1.
You probably have a lot of questions now. So, let’s dive in and explore what accessibility means, what the regulation requires and, most importantly, how WebSite X5 2025.1 can help.
What is Web Accessibility?
Have you ever tried browsing a website in direct sunlight, struggling to read text due to insufficient contrast? Have you ever watched a muted video because you were in public without headphones? Or attempted to fill out an online form, only to face difficulties because the request was unclear, or because the submit button was impossible to click when navigating with the keyboard instead of the mouse? Well, these are just some of the challenges that people with visual, motor, hearing or cognitive disabilities face every day when surfing the web.
Web accessibility aims to remove these barriers, ensuring that everyone can easily access the web content.
In other words, web accessibility is the practice of designing websites, applications, and digital content so that they can be used by everyone, regardless of the user's physical, sensory, or cognitive abilities.
Actually, accessible websites can come in handy also for people with temporary disabilities (for instance a broken arm that makes using a mouse difficult) or limiting situations (such as a slow internet connection or having to use the phone in direct sunlight).
In short, a more accessible website means a more inclusive and user-friendly website for everyone, regardless of their abilities or the context they find themselves in.
Accessibility in numbers
You may think accessibility only impacts a limited number of users, however, data tells a different story.
16% of the world's population has a disability
According to the World Health Organization, over 1.3 billion people in the world, namely 16% of the world population, live with some form of disability, 80 million being in Europe alone, according to the report issued by the European Parliament. In Italy, an estimated 5.2% of the population, or about 3.5 million people, have a disability. These are clearly numbers that can’t be ignored.
A growing issue
With the aging population in many countries, the number of people with disabilities is expected to rise. In the US, for instance, it’s estimated that the number of people aged 65 and older will double by 2060, reaching 90 million people.
90% of websites are not compatible with assistive technology
Even though disabilities affect 1 in 6 people, only 2 in 100 websites are accessible for people with disabilities, and just 1 in 10 websites is browsable by people needing assistive technology. This is a wake-up call: the web, which should be an important gateway, often ends up being another barrier.
People with disabilities represent a market worth 500 billion dollars annually
On the other hand, it is estimated that people with disabilities represent a market of 500 billion dollars a year, and it has been found that 82% of people with disabilities prefer to engage with companies that have accessible websites. This means that having an accessible website allows you to access a significant market share with substantial revenue potential.
These figures show that web accessibility is not a niche issue, but rather a concrete necessity for millions of people. Moreover, they make it clear that accessibility is not only a matter of social inclusion, but also a real opportunity that, as we will see, WebSite X5 can help you seize.
Web Accessibility: Standards and Regulations
To ensure that the web is accessible to everyone, accessibility rules and principles have been defined.
At the international level, the primary reference for digital accessibility is the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), a set of guidelines developed by the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) to provide a shared standard.
The WCAG are organized according to four fundamental principles:
- Perceivable
- Operable
- Understandable
- Robust
Each of these four principles, known by the acronym POUR, represents a crucial aspect of accessibility and includes guidelines. For each guideline, success criteria are provided, describing what must be achieved to conform to the standard. Finally, the success criteria are organized into three levels of conformance:
- Level A: Minimum Conformance - focuses on removing the most critical barriers but does not guarantee a fully accessible experience.
- Level AA: Intermediate Conformance - aims to eliminate most significant barriers for users and represents the standard for most international regulations.
- Level AAA: Advanced Conformance - the most difficult to achieve level and is not always legally required.
The WCAG, in addition to being a reference for web content developers, has had a profound impact on national and international regulations regarding digital accessibility, directly influencing the creation of laws and regulations aimed at ensuring web inclusion.
At the European level, Directive 2016/2102/EU on the accessibility of websites and mobile applications of public sector bodies made compliance with WCAG 2.1 at least at level AA mandatory for all public administrations.
Alongside this, the European Accessibility Act (EAA) will, starting in June 2025, impose accessibility requirements on e-commerce websites, online banking services, digital platforms, and mobile applications of private companies. Microenterprises (businesses with fewer than 10 employees or an annual turnover of less than 2 million euros) will be exempt from these requirements, but they will be encouraged to implement accessibility solutions, as making digital services accessible to everyone still represents an added value in terms of usability and online visibility.
This means that non-compliance with the WCAG can lead to penalties (up to 5% of annual revenue), legal consequences, and reputational damage.
How to create an accessible website with WebSite X5
But how can you create an accessible website? The first guideline—perhaps the most important of all—is to design your web pages with the user at the center. Thinking about how content can be accessed by users, including those with disabilities, is the best guarantee for creating inclusive pages.
That said, you can confidently rely on the WCAG: the guidelines provide detailed and precise instructions on how to handle all the scenarios that may arise and successfully implement accessible solutions.
However, many of these solutions indeed involve generating semantic HTML code, which could pose a problem for those without specific programming skills. This is where WebSite X5 comes into play, as its new version 2025.1 aims to help you create accessible websites.
WebSite X5 autonomously handles many technical aspects related to accessibility, allowing you to create websites without writing a single line of code. Based on a thorough examination of the WCAG, the software addresses many of the level A and double AA accessibility criteria either automatically or with assisted mode.
The software works automatically whenever it generates the page code semantically and in compliance with standards, without you needing to do anything. For example, it handles keyboard navigation and uses ARIA tags for email forms.
In other instances, WebSite X5 operates in assisted mode, providing you with the tools to intervene and improve your pages’ accessibility. For instance, whenever you import an image, video, or audio, it asks you to add an appropriate alternative text.
So, if you're thinking of creating a new website, you can start right away to have pages accessible to everyone. If you already have a website, you can always update it with the new version 2025.1 of WebSite X5. In this case, the project analysis feature will help you identify the key areas you need to address to make your content more inclusive and compliant.
Web Accessibility: Challenges and Opportunities
Facing the challenges posed by accessibility may seem like a daunting task, but WebSite X5 certainly simplifies the process: with semantically correct code at its core and informed choices made by you, you'll be able to make the pages of your website or e-commerce site more and more inclusive.
Additionally, remember that accessibility is a path you can take gradually: even the laws allow a website to have content at different levels of accessibility. You can start by deleting the most important barriers, to then refine the content over time to reach a wider audience.
Finally, as we've partly mentioned before, an accessible website not only ensures an inclusive experience for all users but also offers numerous benefits for the website owner:
- More visitors and greater inclusivity → An accessible website is usable by more people, expanding the number of potential visitors and customers.
- Better SEO ranking → Many aspects of accessibility (alternative text, clear structure, clean code) help the site be better indexed by search engines.
- Improved reputation and trust → Showing attention to accessibility strengthens a company's image, increasing public trust.
- Legal compliance and reduced risks → Following the WCAG guidelines helps avoid penalties, lawsuits, or complaints related to non-compliance with regulations.
- Improved user experience for everyone → Many accessibility practices (such as clear navigation, visible buttons, readable text) make the site more intuitive and easier to use for anyone.
Ultimately, accessibility is not just a requirement but an investment that improves the web for everyone.
Accessibility is the central focus of this update, which also introduces new payment methods. To expand the possibilities of your online store, we’ve added: OnShop, an innovative prepaid payment method using digital vouchers; HyperPay and PayTabs, two payment gateways particularly popular in Arab countries; and PayU, a payment solution widely used in Eastern European countries.
You will find the list of all new features of the new version 2025.1 and of the previous ones on the New Features page.
If you have an active WebSite X5 license, you can directly install the new version: start the program and follow the instructions to do it in a few clicks only.
If, on the other hand, you have a WebSite X5 license that is no longer active, you can renew it now to access the new version 2025.1.
Finally, if you haven’t tried WebSite X5 yet, take the chance and buy it now. The license includes the Hosting service, a 12-month guarantee to receive updates and new versions that will be released, as well as the possibility to use the Priority Support service.