My parents have exactly those on their home, they are great. I can't share about light, because they have 4' eaves over the first floor and most of the windows are on the east side, less light.

Ours was done with a wrought iron railing around the well, with a latched gate and ladder leading to it. I saw one like the one in the photo at a house we visited, but don't remember if there were code issues and why we had to do a railing on ours.

The large window well makes a huge difference in our basement. Ours faces west, but we have a stucco "fence" and bamboo hedge 10 ft away that blocks direct sunlight.

Our window well looks to be deeper than the ones in the photo. We also have drains installed on the floor of the window well that are connected to a sump pump. We are in southern CA and tend to get a lot of rain over a very short period of time. Our contractor has had experience with leaky basements and kind of "demanded" that we spend the money on the drains/pump. No water issues in the 4 years since we built.