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Accessibility that survives being checked

Most accessibility work goes wrong in one of two ways: an overlay widget bolted on that fixes nothing, or a hundred page automated report nobody can act on. Automated tools find perhaps a third of real problems. The rest come from using the site the way somebody with a disability would.

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A page checked with a keyboard, at readable contrast, with focus visible on every control

Where it usually hurts

The plugin that promises compliance
Overlay widgets are marketed as a one line fix and are regarded poorly by the people they claim to help. They do not make a site usable with a screen reader, and in the countries where this has been tested they have not kept anyone out of trouble.
A report with no priorities
An automated scan returns four thousand issues, most of them the same missing label repeated across a template. Without someone sorting the ones that block a person from the ones that are noise, nothing gets fixed.
Nobody has tried it with a keyboard
Tab through most sites and you will find focus disappearing into a hidden menu, a dialog that cannot be closed, and a form where the error message is invisible to a screen reader. Ten minutes of that finds more than any scan.

What the job covers

  • An audit against WCAG 2.2 AA on the journeys that matter, rather than a scan of every page
  • Manual testing with a keyboard and a screen reader, because that is where the real problems are
  • Findings ranked by whether they block somebody, with what to fix and roughly what it takes
  • The fixes carried out, including the awkward ones in forms, menus, and dialogs
  • An accessibility statement written honestly, including what is not yet fixed and when it will be

What it has to talk to

Whatever your site is built on
WordPress, a builder, or something bespoke. Most fixes are in templates and components rather than in individual pages, which is what makes the work finite.
Your content editors
Half of accessibility is created after launch: headings used for their size, images published without alternative text, links that all say read more. A short session and a checklist keeps a fixed site fixed.
Procurement and public sector duties
If you sell to the public sector, or you are part of it, the accessibility regulations apply and a statement is expected. Answering that properly is often what starts this conversation.

A worked approach, not a client

How I would audit and fix an inaccessible site

  1. 01

    Pick the journeys, not the pages

    Finding a service, filling in the form, and getting a confirmation. A site can pass on a hundred pages and still fail the only three things anybody needs to do.

  2. 02

    Test it by hand

    Keyboard only, then with a screen reader, then at two hundred percent zoom on a phone. Automated checks run alongside, and they are the smaller half of what comes back.

  3. 03

    Fix the blockers first

    Anything that stops somebody completing a journey, then the serious annoyances, then the tidy up. The statement is written at the end, describing what is true rather than what is aspired to.

Questions I get asked about this

The ones that come up on almost every first call. If yours is not here, ask it and you will get a straight answer.

Is accessibility a legal requirement in the UK?

The Equality Act 2010 requires reasonable adjustments for disabled people, and it applies to websites. Public sector bodies have a further duty under the 2018 accessibility regulations, which sets WCAG 2.2 AA as the standard and requires a published statement. For a private company the position is less prescriptive and the obligation still exists.

Do accessibility overlays work?

No, and I would not install one. They are widely opposed by disabled users and by the accessibility community, they do not fix the underlying markup, and they have not protected the organisations that bought them. The money is better spent fixing the site.

What is WCAG 2.2 AA?

The version of the international guidelines most UK requirements point at, at the middle of three levels. AA is the practical target: readable contrast, everything reachable by keyboard, forms that explain their errors, and content that works at large text sizes.

Our scan says we have thousands of errors. Is that real?

Mostly it is one template problem counted once per page. Automated tools also miss whole categories, including whether a page makes sense when read aloud in order. A useful audit is a short ranked list, not a long unranked one.

How long does an accessibility audit take?

A couple of days for the audit on a site of ordinary size, then the fixes depend on what is found. Template level problems are quick to fix everywhere at once. Content problems take longer because there is more of it and somebody has to write the alternative text.

Does accessibility help SEO?

The same things help both, which is not a coincidence. Proper headings, meaningful link text, alternative text on images, and pages that work without JavaScript are read by a screen reader and a crawler in much the same way. It is a real benefit and a poor primary reason to do it.

Will fixing it change how the site looks?

Rarely in ways anyone objects to. Contrast fixes can nudge a brand colour, and a focus outline becomes visible where it was removed. Everything else is invisible to people who were not struggling in the first place.

Can you build a new site accessible from the start?

That is much cheaper than retrofitting, and it is how every site I build is done: tested against WCAG 2.2 AA on the journeys that matter before launch rather than audited a year later. If you are already considering a rebuild, this is one more thing that gets fixed as a side effect.

Related

Tell me what you have now

Half an hour on a call, and a straight answer about whether this is the right job and whether I am the right person for it.

Book a callhello@breitloh.com