Accessibility
What an audit actually checks.
Accessibility gets talked about in acronyms. Here is what the standard is, what the levels mean, what a real audit covers, and why a perfect automated score is not the finish line.
Start with what a score does not tell you
Run this site through Google Lighthouse and the accessibility score comes back 100. That is a real result and we are glad to have it. It is also not the same thing as being compliant, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something.
Automated tools reliably catch a minority of real barriers. They are good at contrast ratios, missing alt attributes, and empty labels. They cannot tell you whether your alt text is meaningful, whether tab order makes sense, whether a custom dropdown announces itself correctly, or whether someone can complete a booking without a mouse. Those are judgment questions and they need a person.
So treat a score as a smoke alarm. A low one is proof of a problem. A high one is not proof of its absence.
The standard rests on four ideas
WCAG, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, is the reference every letter and settlement points at. Underneath the numbering, it is four plain questions.
- Perceivable
- Can people take the information in?
- Text alternatives for images, captions on video, colour contrast that holds up, layouts that survive being zoomed to 200%.
- Operable
- Can people actually drive it?
- Everything reachable and usable by keyboard, a visible focus indicator, a skip link, no traps, enough time to finish a task.
- Understandable
- Does it behave predictably?
- Labels that say what they mean, errors explained in words rather than colour alone, navigation that stays in the same place.
- Robust
- Does assistive technology cope with it?
- Valid markup, correct roles and names on custom controls, and status messages announced rather than shown silently.
A, AA, AAA: what the levels mean
- Level A
- The floor.
- Barriers that block access outright, such as content that cannot be reached by keyboard at all. Failing here is severe.
- Level AA
- The working standard.
- What demand letters, settlements, and procurement policies almost always reference. Adds contrast minimums, visible focus, consistent navigation, and meaningful labels. This is the target for every site we build.
- Level AAA
- Aspirational, not expected.
- Includes requirements that are impractical for most sites, such as sign language interpretation for all audio. Nobody is expected to meet AAA across a whole site.
When you see “WCAG 2.1 AA” in a demand letter, that is the bar being asked for. It is achievable on an ordinary small business website.
The six passes we run
Automated scanning is the first ten minutes, not the audit. The rest is done by hand, because that is where the barriers that get businesses sued actually live.
Keyboard only
Put the mouse down and tab through the whole page. Every link, button, menu, and form control has to be reachable, usable, and visibly highlighted, with nothing trapping focus.
Screen reader
Listen to the page. Headings should describe the structure, images should say something useful or nothing at all, and controls should announce what they are and what state they are in.
Colour and contrast
Measured, not eyeballed. Body text needs 4.5:1 against its background, large text and interface borders need 3:1. Colour alone must never be the only way meaning is conveyed.
Zoom and reflow
At 200% zoom and at a 320 pixel width, content should reflow rather than clip, overlap, or force sideways scrolling.
Forms and errors
Every field has a real label, errors are described in text, and the message is announced to assistive technology rather than appearing silently.
Motion and timing
Animation respects reduced motion preferences, nothing flashes rapidly, and anything moving or auto-advancing can be stopped.
Every site we build is checked this way before launch and re-checked periodically afterwards, with the findings sent to you in plain language. That is part of the monthly rate, not an add-on.
Next step
Want to know where your site stands?
Send us your web address and we will run the checks above and tell you what we find, in plain language. No cost, and no call unless you want one.