What is an Accessibility Audit? (for Digital Assets)
An accessibility audit is a comprehensive evaluation of a digital asset, ensuring it meets accessibility standards, like WCAG 2.1 AA. The audit helps identify barriers that may prevent people with disabilities from effectively using your digital product. It’s not about running automated scans—it’s a meticulous, manual process conducted by technical experts. Here’s a breakdown of what goes into an accessibility audit:
1. Key Components of an Accessibility Audit
- Thorough Manual Evaluation: An audit involves detailed testing, including screen reader testing, keyboard navigation, visual inspection, and sometimes code analysis. Automated scans are part of the process but not relied upon, as they detect only a small fraction of potential issues.
- Identifying Non-Conformance: The audit evaluates a digital asset’s conformance with a specific accessibility standard (typically WCAG 2.1 AA) and identifies any non-conformances that could hinder accessibility for people with disabilities.
2. The Audit Process and Report
- Actionable Reports: Once accessibility issues are identified, the audit report provides all the practical details: issue description, WCAG criteria, location of the issue, and remediation recommendations. This helps developers understand exactly what needs fixing.
- Comprehensive Methodologies: An audit involves diverse testing environments (like different browsers, operating systems, and devices) and accessibility tools to ensure all issues are uncovered. Screen reader and keyboard testing are essential to this process.
In conclusion, an accessibility audit is an essential first step in making your digital products more inclusive. It uncovers and reports on all accessibility issues, ensuring that your product meets standards and is usable by everyone. After the audit, you can move forward with remediation to fix the identified issues.
Key Takeaways
- Manual testing is crucial—automated scans alone aren’t enough.
- Audit reports provide clear, actionable guidance for developers to fix accessibility issues.