Keep the page's reading order clear in every layout

What to change

Ask your supplier to make instructions, choices and related explanations follow a meaningful sequence when read aloud or stacked on a phone.

A worked example

Illustrative example

A preparation panel is read before the control that starts its task, even though the panel sits beside that control in the wide-screen design.

Healthcare website design showing connected desktop and mobile service and enquiry layouts. — Make the service and next step clear on every screen.

Healthcare website accessibility illustrated by a focus outline, keyboard key, contrast samples and form. — Review keyboard access, contrast and understandable form fields.

Why this matters to your practice

A two-column layout can look sensible while its spoken reading sequence puts an instruction after the action it explains. Review the page as a story: introduction, relevant information, then the choice the visitor needs to make. Ask the supplier to listen through it in that order and show the stacked phone layout too. Your team should judge the meaning of the sequence. The technical work is to preserve that meaning across presentations, rather than relying on position alone.

How to check the result

Accept when both visual and spoken routes provide information in time for the decision or action it supports.

A mistake to avoid

Moving a warning visually above a button does not ensure it will be encountered first in the page's reading sequence.

Turn reading into a next step

Your action checklist

Work through these checks with your team or supplier. Tick the ones you have resolved and leave unknowns open.

Checks to discussAsk your supplier to demonstrate this check with you: listen through a representative page from its main heading without jumping between links. Note any instruction, label or explanation that arrives after its dependent action.Inspect the same page when columns stack on a phone. This often makes sequence problems visible without accessibility tools.Ask the supplier to correct the underlying order and then review the desktop arrangement. Both presentations should preserve the same understandable relationships.

Your answers and notes

Record what you know, what is still missing and the answer you need from your team or supplier.

What happens next, and who will do it?

Use project decisions only, without personal, patient or confidential details. Entries stay in this page and are not submitted to Kay & Co. Copy or download before leaving; this page does not save your notes.

Related guides

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