How to Run a Web Accessibility Audit in 5 Easy Steps

Have you ever used a website that just did not function as expected — buttons you could not click, forms you could not fill out, or text too difficult to read? Learn how to run a web accessibility audit. Now think of that being your experience on the Internet all the time – this is reality for millions of users with disabilities.

The unfortunate truth is that many websites inadvertently exclude people because they are not designed or tested with accessibility in mind. This not only affects your users, but it also exposes your business to lawsuits, hurts your SEO, and limits your audience.

That’s why we do a web accessibility audit. In this guide, we will walk you through exactly how to run a web accessibility audit step-by-step using the right tools, techniques, and testing strategies. Whether you are an independent developer or part of a growing team, this guide will help you design an inclusive site that is built with the future in mind.

What Is a Web Accessibility Audit?

A web accessibility audit is an overall assessment of your website to see how usable it is to people with disabilities. It doesn’t just box-check technical aspects, but it considers whether all users, regardless of ability, can navigate to, interact with, and comprehend your content.

The audits will look at your site and how it compares to accessibility standards such as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, as well as laws such as the Americans with Disabilities Act & Section 508. In other words, it intends to catch issues and challenges that might be making your site difficult, or even impossible, to access for some users.

If you are pondering how to run a web accessibility audit, you first need to understand the areas you intend to evaluate. Here are the areas that audits typically include:

• Alt Text on Images- Any image should display a meaningful text alternative.
• Headings and Content Structure- Proper use of H1, H2, H3 for both screen reader and clarity.
• Keyboard Navigation- Are users able to move around your site without a mouse?
• Color and Contrast- Is there contrast in the text and background so that visually impaired users can read content?
• Form Accessibility- Labels and instructions, and error messages must be uncluttered and clear, but still friendly to assistive tech.
• Multimedia- Videos should have Captions; Audio should have transcripts.
• ARIA Labels- Includes the purpose or role of elements, helping assistive tech in understanding the layout and components.

Running a web accessibility audit helps you make sure your site isn’t unintentionally driving people away. It really is more than compliance; it is about creating a better user experience for everyone who visits your site, making it as inclusive as possible.

Why Is a Web Accessibility Audit a Must?

If you forego a web accessibility audit, you are essentially rolling out a website with blind spots – and not just for people using a screen reader. When the site is inaccessible, it creates invisible barriers that make it difficult for users to interact with your content, buy something, create an account, or even read your blog.

Now, imagine how many people you might be alienating – not just a couple throughout the process, but over 1 billion people on earth with some type of disability. Whether it’s vision loss, motor impairments, cognitive disabilities, or hearing loss, every single user deserves equal access to that website.

That is why knowing how to run a web accessibility audit has shifted from optional to essential.

Top Reasons Why You Need a Web Accessibility Audit

1. More Audience & Market Reach: 1 in 5 internet users has some type of disability — that’s a massive part of the online population. If your site is not accessible, you could be missing out on 20% of your total audience, and that could definitely be costing you money.
2. Legal Requirements: Laws, regulations, and standards such as the ADA, Section 508, EN 301 549 in Europe, etc., require websites — especially for public sector websites, and businesses in a commercial space — to comply with accessibility standards. Businesses that do not comply are being challenged legally in increasing numbers. In fact, more than 4,200 lawsuits were filed in the U.S. in 2023 alone related to inaccessible websites.
3. Better SEO Performance: Search engines use semantic HTML, alt text, and clean code. When you run an accessibility audit and fix the problems with content, you’re also giving Google a more streamlined and easier experience to interpret for searches, and that can help your site rank better.
4. Better User Experience for All: Accessible websites are easier to use for all user types. When text is readable, color contrast is sufficient, the language is uncomplicated, the structure is clear, and navigation is intuitive, users can pay more attention to relevant action to stay engaged.
5. Prepare Your Brand for the Future: Accessibility is not just a compliance checkbox; it is part of ethical, inclusive digital design. Brands that prioritize accessibility in the early stages will be proactive about the changes in the industry, avoid regulation and compliance, build trust, and foster reputations.

In conclusion, not only is it important to know how to run a web accessibility audit to avoid lawsuits, but it will also open all of those digital doors for everyone, build stronger SEO, and show the world that your brand genuinely believes in inclusion.

How to Run a Web Accessibility Audit: 5 Steps

Whether you’re a lone developer or managing a large site, knowing how to run a web accessibility audit means you have a repeatable process that is thorough, efficient, and effective. Below are the five steps every accessibility audit should include, as well as links to free tools and best practices.

Step 1: Understand the Accessibility Guidelines You Are Auditing Against

Before testing anything, you need to know what “accessible” means. Accessibility standards are not consistent across the world, but most organizations use the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) created by W3C.

You should pay attention to:

• WCAG 2.1 or 2.2: Focus on Level AA compliance — this is the standard required by most legislation.
• ADA: U.S. businesses are required to follow Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which requires “reasonable accessibility.”
• Section 508: This applies to U.S. federal government websites and website contractors.
• EN 301 549: Used by public companies in the EU.

WCAG is built on 4 core principles — your content needs to be:

• Perceivable (perceived as a sight, or a sound)
• Operable (so they can navigate)
• Understandable (the content needs to be clear and predictable)
• Robust (should work with assistive tech)

Tip: Save a link to the WCAG Quick Reference Guide — it’s your audit bible.

By knowing the rules up front, you’ll be able to better interpret the audit results and prioritise fixes based on absolute impact and compliance obligations.

Step 2: Utilize Automation Accessibility Testing Tools for a Quick Scan

Now that you’re familiar with the rules, it’s time to allow the tools to do the work, to begin with at least. Automated tools can do a great job of quickly finding easily identifiable and repetitive problems across several pages.

Recommended free tools:

• WAVE by WebAIM – A Chrome extension that will find issues with color contrast, missing alt text, etc.
• Axe DevTools (Deque) – A developer-friendly browser extension with WCAG mapping.
• Google Lighthouse – Built into Chrome DevTools and has an accessibility score.
• SiteImprove or Tenon.io – Good for enterprise-level monitoring.
• Pa11y CLI – Good for integration into CI/CD processes.

These tools will capture things like:

• Missing or duplicated alt attributes
• Insufficient color contrast
• Heading order errors
• Misconfigured ARIA attributes
• Links that don’t have meaningful text

Bonus Tip: Be sure to test important pages in the user journey, like your home page, product page, blog templates, and form pages.

Remember, the automated scan will find about only 30-40% of accessibility issues. That is why step 3—manual testing—will provide the real gold.

Step 3: Manually Testing for Real Users

Automated tools offer a lot of value, but they do not have a complete “picture.” This is why you need to do a manual accessibility test, which is critical.

What can you do a manual test for?

• Keyboard Navigation: Unplug your mouse and try using only your keyboard to navigate the site (Tab, Shift+Tab, Enter, and Space). Do you navigate sequentially through the menu, form, and interactive elements?
• Screen Reader Experience: You would want to try:
  • NVDA (Windows) – free and popular
  • VoiceOver (Mac/iOS) – built in and trustworthy
  • JAWS – a popular enterprise solution
• Alt Text: Is it descriptive and useful, or is it just “image123.jpg”?
• Headings and Landmarks: Are you using H1s, and are you creating logical page splits using headings?
• Form Fields: Are you able to fill out the form fields using only your keyboard? Are errors and instructions being announced?

Pro Tip: Consider completing a common task such as checkout, signing up for an account, or reading a blog post.

Ask Yourself: Would this experience be smooth if I couldn’t see, hear, or use my mouse?

You cannot replace manual testing when trying to simulate how real users with disabilities use your site. It’s slow – I get it! But, it’s the best way to find what automation cannot.

Step 4: Testing with Real Users with Disabilities

No matter how good your tools are, your testing process, or the method you use to test, you’re not done until you’ve tested with real people (particularly, those regularly using assistive tech).

The value of this step:

• Real users will highlight contextual issues that automation and manual testers will miss.
• They will give you a firsthand account of usability, clarity, and comfort.
• This promotes empathy and helps your team understand why accessibility matters.

How to get people for accessibility testing:

• Work with services like Fable, Access Works, or UserZoom.
• Contact local disability organizations or online accessibility communities.
• Provide clear testing scenarios and goals (e.g., “Complete a purchase,” “Submit a form,” etc.).

You can ask testers:

• Did you experience any barriers?
• Was any part confusing or difficult to access?
• Could you complete the task without help?

Testing with real users doesn’t just confirm compliance — it tells you if your site is usable.

This step often reveals the most valuable moments, and frequently, after passing automated checks and manual checks.

Step 5: Document, Prioritize and Fix the Problems

It’s now time to get your audit into action! A proper report where you are clear with your devs’ and design team’s next steps to fix the issues is critical.

Your accessibility audit report should have the following contents:

• Issue Description – Describe what the issue is (e.g., “We have missing alt text on the hero image).
• WCAG Reference – have the guideline code (e.g., WCAG 1.1.1 Non-text Content)
• Impact Level – critical, major, or minor
• Location – page URL + section or element
• Recommended Fix – simple instructions for remediation
• Screenshot or Code Snippet – optional, but will be helpful

Whether you want to use a spreadsheet, Notion doc, or some kind of ticketing system (like Jira or Trello) to track the issues and assign ownership, please do. Critical issues (like a broken form or missing keyboard access) should be prioritized first, then Moderate, and Didn’t impact issues.

Tool Tip: Deque, SiteImprove, and axe DevTools can auto-export issues in dev-friendly formats.

After the issues have been fixed, retest the affected pages using automated testing and then with manual methods to get everything back to normal.

Remember: Accessibility is not a one-time project – it’s a process on top of the web development process. Start building audits into your launch process, sprint cycle, or even QA checklist so you’re always one step ahead.

Final Thoughts

Let’s face it — the internet wasn’t exactly designed with everyone in mind. But we know better now. And if you’ve made it this far, I’m guessing you care about knowing better, too.

Learning how to run a web accessibility audit is not only about following rules, regulations, or worrying about being sued. It’s about creating digital environments that actually work for people — real people — people who use screen readers, or those who don’t use a mouse, or who experience the world differently, or move through the world differently.

Sure, accessibility can feel daunting at first. There is a lot to check. A lot to fix. But the good news is that you don’t need to get it all done perfectly today. Just get started and audit one page, one form, one flow. And keep going.

Because when you design for inclusion, everyone benefits. Your users win. Your business wins. And the web gets just slightly better than it was yesterday.

So take that first step. Bookmark this guide. Run that audit. And commit to making accessibility a part of how you build, not just what you fix.

FAQs About How to Run a Web Accessibility Audit