S Harish Chandan is a SEBI Registered Research Analyst (INH000012768) based in Bengaluru, publishing research on index options, equities and futures. His old website was an ordinary brochure site. He asked us for something different: a complete accessible WordPress website that meets both SEBI’s disclosure rules for Research Analysts and WCAG 2.2 Level AA, built from scratch and tested with real assistive technology.
The brief grew as we went: 21 pages of SEBI compliant content, five priced research services with 52 subscription plans, a news section, a searchable financial dictionary of 518 terms, and an Investor Charter and Grievance Redressal route in the format SEBI prescribes - all of it working equally well for screen reader users, keyboard users and low vision readers on a phone.
Table of Contents
Why accessibility matters for a SEBI research analyst
A research analyst’s website is a regulated document as much as a marketing page. SEBI expects the registration number, complaints data, Investor Charter, disclosures and a grievance route to be findable by every investor, and the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act expects the same content to reach investors who use a screen reader or cannot use a mouse. Subscribers also arrive from WhatsApp on a phone, often with large text switched on. So this site was not remediated afterwards - it was designed and built accessible from the first page.
Scope and standard
The whole site was built to WCAG 2.2 AA from day one. The foundation is our own Ariade accessible block theme, carrying the client’s dark navy design system through a site-specific child theme. Every SEBI required page - Mandatory Disclosures, Investor Charter, Grievance Redressal, complaints data, Terms, Refund and Anti Money Laundering policies - is a real page in the main navigation or footer, not a PDF. Payments run on hosted Razorpay payment pages, so no card data ever touches the site. Rank Math handles search metadata and structured data, and the site’s own Accessibility Statement is published for readers.
How we built the S Harish Chandan accessible WordPress website
- Ariade block theme with a child theme: semantic landmarks, skip link, visible focus rings, a real hamburger menu on phones and an accessibility bar with contrast, larger text, smaller text and reset controls
- Five research services, each on its own page with plan tables and 52 individual Subscribe buttons wired to hosted Razorpay payment pages; the whole card is one tappable link, so nothing is hidden from a keyboard
- A financial dictionary of 518 terms with an ARIA combobox search (arrow keys, Enter, Escape, live result announcements), a Concept of the Day card and an A to Z letter index that becomes a select control on phones
- SEBI compliance pages built as accessible tables and headed sections, including the complaints data table in the layout SEBI prescribes
- Screen reader testing with JAWS and NVDA on Windows, VoiceOver on macOS and iOS, and TalkBack on Android
- Keyboard only passes, Colour Contrast Analyser checks and 400% browser zoom testing on every template, plus automated audits with Deque axe, Google Lighthouse and WAVE - zero errors on every service and dictionary page, Lighthouse 100 across all four scores
What accessibility means on each part of the site
Each part of the site carries its own accessibility duties:
- Services - plan tables announce the plan name, tenure, price and discount in order, and every Subscribe button says which plan it buys
- Payments - hosted Razorpay pages with a fixed amount, no card details on the site, and a redirect back to an accessible Thank You page
- Financial dictionary - search works as a proper combobox for screen readers, results are announced politely, and every term page carries DefinedTerm structured data
- News - articles with real headings, alt text on every chart and a category and tag structure that screen reader users can browse
- Investor Charter and Grievance Redressal - the three level escalation route (compliance desk, SEBI SCORES, SMART ODR) as headed sections and labelled links, readable in one pass
- Contact - a labelled, keyboard operable form with clear error messages and the official numbers marked up as tel links
None of this is decoration. For a regulated professional, an accessible website is the proof that every investor, including those using assistive technology, can read the disclosures the regulator requires.
Outcome
raharishchandan.com went live as a born accessible WordPress website, migrated from our staging server to the client’s own hosting on the day of final payment. A subscriber using JAWS or NVDA can compare plans and complete a subscription, a keyboard user can search the dictionary and read the Investor Charter, and a low vision reader at 400% zoom can follow the grievance route - all without asking anyone for help. Launch checks show zero errors in axe and WAVE on every service and dictionary page and Lighthouse 100/100/100/100, and every new page the client adds inherits the same care from the theme underneath.