What is "Check Website Accessibility"?
Checking website accessibility is the practice of evaluating how usable a website is for people with disabilities, ensuring it conforms to standards like the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). This process identifies barriers that prevent users from perceiving, understanding, navigating, and interacting with online content.
Businesses often launch or update websites without considering accessibility, leading to immediate compliance risks and the exclusion of a significant portion of their potential audience. The frustration comes from not knowing where to start, fearing complex legal jargon, and wasting resources on reactive fixes.
- WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) — The internationally recognized technical standard for web accessibility, organized around the principles of Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust (POUR).
- Screen Readers — Assistive software used by blind or visually impaired people to convert on-screen text and elements into speech or braille; a site must be structured correctly for them to work.
- Keyboard Navigation — The requirement that all interactive website functions must be usable with a keyboard alone, crucial for users who cannot use a mouse.
- Alternative Text (Alt Text) — Descriptive text added to images so screen reader users can understand the content and function of visual elements.
- Color Contrast — The luminance difference between text and its background, which must meet specific ratios so users with low vision or color blindness can read content.
- ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) Labels — HTML attributes that provide extra information about elements to assistive technologies, especially for dynamic content.
- Automated Testing — The use of software tools to scan a website for common, detectable accessibility issues, which is fast but cannot catch all problems.
- Manual Auditing — The essential human-led process of testing with assistive technologies and keyboard-only use to find issues automated tools miss.
This topic is critical for founders, product teams, and marketing managers who are responsible for their company's digital presence, legal compliance, and market reach. It solves the problem of unintentionally discriminating against users and exposing the business to legal and reputational damage.
In short: It is a systematic evaluation to ensure your website can be used by everyone, which is a legal, ethical, and commercial imperative.
Why it matters for businesses
Ignoring website accessibility leads to direct financial loss, legal liability, and brand damage, as you exclude up to 16% of the global population who live with a disability from engaging with your business.
- Legal Action & Fines → Non-compliance with laws like the European Accessibility Act (EAA) or the UK Equality Act can result in lawsuits, financial penalties, and mandated website overhauls under legal supervision.
- Excluding a Large Market → You miss out on the spending power of millions of people with disabilities, their families, and friends who prioritize inclusive brands.
- Damaged Brand Reputation → Public exposure of an inaccessible website, especially on social media, can cause significant PR harm and signal a lack of corporate social responsibility.
- Poor SEO Performance → Many accessibility practices, like proper heading structure and descriptive link text, directly improve your site's search engine rankings.
- Higher Support Costs → Inaccessible sites generate more frustrated customer service calls and emails from users who cannot complete tasks independently.
- Wasted Development Budget → Retrofitting accessibility late in a project or after a launch is exponentially more costly and time-consuming than building it in from the start.
- Internal Productivity Loss → An inaccessible intranet or SaaS platform hinders your own employees with disabilities, reducing their efficiency and satisfaction.
- Failed Public Sector Contracts → Many government and large corporate procurement processes now mandate WCAG compliance, automatically disqualifying non-compliant vendors.
- Poor Mobile & Broad Device Usability → Accessible design principles, like clear touch targets and responsive layouts, improve the experience for all users on all devices.
In short: Accessibility is not a cost center but a strategic investment that mitigates risk, expands your market, and improves core business metrics.
Step-by-step guide
Tackling website accessibility can feel overwhelming due to technical standards, but a structured, phased approach makes it manageable and effective.
Step 1: Establish Ownership and Scope
The initial obstacle is ambiguity over who is responsible. Assign clear ownership to a product manager, marketing lead, or a dedicated accessibility champion. Define the scope: Is this a full audit of the public website, a specific user flow, or a new feature in development?
- Document the specific pages or templates to be checked first (e.g., homepage, contact form, checkout process).
- Set a realistic timeline and secure buy-in from stakeholders by linking the project to compliance and business goals.
Step 2: Conduct an Automated Scan
You need a quick, initial baseline of issues. Use a free automated testing tool (like axe DevTools or WAVE) on your key pages. This will catch obvious, machine-detectable problems but will not give you a complete picture.
Quick test: Run a scan on your homepage. The report will immediately flag issues like missing image alt text, low color contrast, or missing form labels.
Step 3: Perform Manual Keyboard Testing
Automated tools cannot assess true usability. Disconnect your mouse and try to navigate your entire site using only the TAB, SHIFT+TAB, ENTER, and SPACE keys.
The pain here is discovering invisible navigation traps. You must verify that a logical focus order exists, all interactive elements are reachable and usable, and a visible focus indicator is present.
Step 4: Review with a Screen Reader
The fear of complex software is common. Use the free, built-in screen reader on your operating system (NVDA for Windows, VoiceOver for Mac) to listen to your site.
Start by checking if page titles are unique and descriptive, if headings (h1, h2, etc.) structure content logically, and if link text makes sense out of context (e.g., "click here" fails this test).
Step 5: Audit Visual Design and Content
Visual clutter and poor design create barriers. Manually inspect your site for common pitfalls.
- Color Contrast: Use a contrast checker tool on all text and essential graphical elements.
- Text Alternatives: Ensure every informative image has descriptive alt text; decorative images have empty alt attributes (
alt=""). - Content Clarity: Check that instructions rely on more than color or shape alone, and that video content has captions and transcripts.
Step 6: Document Findings and Prioritize
A raw list of errors is not an action plan. Create a clear report that categorizes issues by WCAG guideline and severity (Critical, Major, Minor).
Prioritize fixes that block core user tasks (like submitting a form) or are quick wins (like adding missing alt text). This turns confusion into a clear development backlog.
Step 7: Integrate Fixes and Retest
The risk is that fixes break other functionality. Work with your development team to remediate issues, then retest using the same methods from Steps 2-5. Update your report to track progress.
Step 8: Formalize an Ongoing Process
The final frustration is treating this as a one-off project. To avoid regression, integrate accessibility checks into your existing workflows.
- Add automated testing to your CI/CD pipeline.
- Include accessibility criteria in design reviews and QA test plans.
- Schedule periodic manual audits, especially after major updates.
In short: Start with automated scans for a baseline, but rely on manual testing for true usability, then prioritize, fix, and embed checks into your permanent workflow.
Common mistakes and red flags
These pitfalls persist because they offer a superficial sense of compliance or stem from a lack of understanding of how people with disabilities actually use the web.
- Relying Solely on Automated Tools → This creates a false sense of security, as many usability issues (like logical reading order) require human judgment. Fix: Always combine automated scans with manual keyboard and screen reader testing.
- Treating Accessibility as a "Launch Checklist" → This leads to quick, brittle fixes that break with the next site update. Fix: Integrate accessibility into your design system, component library, and development lifecycle from the start.
- Using Generic Link Text Like "Click Here" → Screen reader users often navigate via a list of links; "click here" provides no context. Fix: Use descriptive link text that states its purpose, e.g., "Download the Annual Report (PDF)."
- Ignoring Focus Management for Dynamic Content → When modal windows or content panels open, keyboard focus can be trapped or lost. Fix: Ensure keyboard focus moves to new dynamic content and can be easily dismissed.
- Creating "Separate" Accessible Versions → Maintaining a parallel, text-only site is inefficient, often outdated, and can be seen as segregating users. Fix: Commit to making your primary website inherently accessible to all.
- Overlooking Document Accessibility → Your website may be compliant, but linked PDFs, Word docs, or PowerPoints are often inaccessible. Fix: Apply the same accessibility standards to all downloadable documents.
- Assuming Native Elements are Sufficient → While HTML buttons are accessible by default, custom-built JavaScript widgets often are not. Fix: Use ARIA roles and attributes correctly when building custom interactive components.
- Neglecting User Testing with Disabled People → You miss critical, real-world usability issues that only people with lived experience can identify. Fix: Budget for and include people with disabilities in your usability testing panels.
In short: The biggest mistake is treating accessibility as a technical checkbox instead of an ongoing commitment to inclusive user experience.
Tools and resources
The challenge is navigating a crowded field of tools, from free browser plugins to enterprise platforms, without knowing which is right for your specific phase.
- Automated Testing Browser Extensions — Best for initial scans and developers' daily workflow. Tools like axe DevTools or WAVE provide instant, page-level reports on detectable violations directly in your browser.
- Integrated Development Environment (IDE) Plugins — Address the problem of catching errors during coding. These plugins highlight accessibility issues in real-time as developers write HTML, JSX, or other code.
- Color Contrast Analyzers — Solve the specific pain of unreadable text. These standalone tools or browser features allow designers to check color pairs against WCAG ratio requirements instantly.
- Screen Reader Software — Essential for manual auditing. Learning the basics of NVDA (free) or VoiceOver (built into Mac/iOS) is non-negotiable for testing the experience of blind and low-vision users.
- Keyboard Navigation Testers — A simple but critical manual method. No special tool is needed beyond disconnecting your mouse to test the full interactive flow of your site.
- Accessibility Overlay Widgets — A controversial category that promises quick compliance via a toolbar on your site. They are not a substitute for fixing underlying code and often introduce new accessibility problems.
- WCAG Reference Documentation — The definitive resource for understanding the precise success criteria. Use the official WCAG QuickRef to look up requirements when evaluating issues.
- Specialized Audit & Consulting Services — The solution for deep, expert-level analysis and legal risk assessment. These are used for comprehensive audits, training, and when preparing for a high-stakes launch or compliance deadline.
In short: Use free tools for discovery and testing, but invest in expert audits and training for assurance and complex projects.
How Bilarna can help
Finding and vetting reliable accessibility service providers who match your specific project scope, budget, and timeline is a significant and time-consuming challenge.
Bilarna's AI-powered B2B marketplace simplifies this process. Our platform connects businesses with verified software and service providers specializing in web accessibility audits, consulting, remediation, and ongoing monitoring. You can efficiently compare providers based on verified client reviews, service specializations, and project history.
By using Bilarna, you reduce the risk of engaging with unqualified vendors. Our verification process and structured provider profiles help founders, product teams, and procurement leads make informed decisions, ensuring your investment in accessibility delivers compliant, user-friendly results.
Frequently asked questions
Q: What is the legal deadline for making our website accessible in the EU?
The European Accessibility Act (EAA) sets compliance deadlines for specific sectors. For private companies, the key date is June 28, 2025. After this, new websites and mobile applications for certain services (like e-commerce, banking, and transportation) must be accessible. Proactive compliance now avoids last-minute, costly overhauls and legal risk.
Q: How much does a professional accessibility audit typically cost?
Costs vary widely based on website size and complexity, ranging from a few thousand euros for a basic audit to tens of thousands for large, complex platforms. The most expensive outcome is a lawsuit or a forced rebuild. The next step is to define your audit scope (number of page templates, key user journeys) to get accurate quotes from providers.
Q: Can we just add an "accessibility overlay" toolbar to fix our site?
Overlay widgets are not a reliable solution. They often conflict with users' own assistive technologies, fail to address underlying code issues, and have been the subject of successful lawsuits. The concrete takeaway is to invest in fixing your site's source code rather than relying on a superficial overlay.
Q: Our site is built on a common CMS like WordPress or Shopify. Does that make it accessible?
No. While these platforms provide accessible foundations, the final site's accessibility depends entirely on your chosen theme, plugins, and content. You must:
- Select themes marketed as accessible.
- Configure plugins (like forms and sliders) correctly.
- Add alt text and structure content properly.
Q: Who in our organization should own website accessibility?
Accessibility is a cross-functional responsibility. Ownership typically falls to:
- Product Managers for core application features.
- Marketing/Content Leads for public-facing websites and content.
- Design & Development Teams for implementation.
Q: How do we handle accessibility for user-generated content (like forum posts)?
You cannot fully control user content, but you must provide guidance and tools. Your next steps are to:
- Provide clear accessibility guidelines for users posting content.
- Ensure your posting interface has accessibility features (like an alt text field for images).
- Implement a moderation process to address egregious, reported barriers.