Accessibility audit
A systematic review of a site or application to check whether it meets accessibility guidelines, such as WCAG, and where it fails.
What it’s for
It helps find the barriers that keep people with disabilities from using a product, before those barriers reach them.
Key elements
A representative sample
Review the most important screens and tasks, not just the home page.
Tool and person
Automated tools catch part of it; the rest requires manual review, with keyboard and screen reader.
Each failure, with its guideline
That way you know what to fix, why and what is most urgent.
How it’s done
Define the scope and choose a representative sample of screens.
Review each screen against the guidelines, with tools and by hand.
Report what you found with priorities and proposed fixes.
Applications in design
When to use it
Before launching a product and whenever it changes a lot, or when the law requires meeting the guidelines.
Avoid
Approving a page just because an automated tool found no errors.
Don’t fall for it
Meeting the guidelines doesn’t guarantee it’s easy to use; also test with people with disabilities.
Connections
Builds on
Authors and works
- 2014
Eric Velleman and Shadi Abou-Zahra
Edited the W3C methodology for evaluating websites in five steps: define the scope, explore the site, choose a sample, review it and report.
- 2023
W3C
WCAG 2.2 are the guidelines each screen is checked against.
Sources
Original sources
- Velleman, E., & Abou-Zahra, S. (Eds.) (2014). Website Accessibility Conformance Evaluation Methodology (WCAG-EM) 1.0. W3C. View source: Velleman, E., & Abou-Zahra, S. (Eds.) (2014)
- W3C (2023). Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2. W3C Recommendation, October 5, 2023. View source: W3C (2023)
Last reviewed: