Guides
The questions owners actually ask, answered properly.
133 long-form guides on the questions that arrive by email. What makes a PDF readable, which fonts help, what ARIA is for, why forms lose you sales, what an audit costs, and where automated testing stops. Every number in them is checked against the spec, the regulation or the vendor's own documentation before it goes up, and where we could not settle something, the guide says so instead of guessing.
Foundations
Start here if the vocabulary is new.
- ?What is web accessibilityA website is accessible when someone who cannot see it, cannot use a mouse, or cannot hear it can still do what they came to do. Everything else is detail.Read the guide →
- DWhat is digital accessibilityWeb accessibility is your website. Digital accessibility is your website, your app, your PDFs, your email, your kiosk, and the software your staff use all day.Read the guide →
- $What an audit costsQuotes for the same website range from a few hundred to five figures. The spread is not margin. It is how much of the work is actually included.Read the guide →
- hrsWhat fixing it costsThere is no price list for this work and there never will be. There is a way to work out your own number, and it takes an afternoon.Read the guide →
- 2.2WCAG versions and levelsTwo numbers confuse everyone. The version and the level. They mean different things, and picking the wrong pair wastes money in both directions.Read the guide →
- ✦Why it mattersThere is a moral argument and a commercial one. Both are real, and the commercial one is routinely oversold, so here it is with the sources attached.Read the guide →
- 1stWhere to startThe first month, in the order that actually helps.Read the guide →
- WORKAccessibility at workA private employer owes an accommodation, not a conformance level. That one difference changes how you plan, budget and answer the question.Read the guide →
- CTXChange of contextMost of what your interface does when somebody clicks is allowed. The definition has four members, and if your change is not one of them, three rules stop applying at once.Read the guide →
- SETSet of web pagesFive rules are judged across a set rather than a page, and WCAG draws the boundary by purpose and authorship rather than by domain.Read the guide →
- 411What happened to 4.1.14.1.1 Parsing was removed from WCAG 2.2 and declared always satisfied in the versions that still carry it. W3C holds four positions on it at once, and your tool has picked one.Read the guide →
- PAGEWhat counts as a web pageWCAG measures one thing, a web page, and it defines that by address rather than by appearance. Single-page applications are where the definition catches people out.Read the guide →
- ATAGATAG and UAAGWCAG is one of three. The other two cover the tool you publish through and the browser people read in, and an owner who cannot add alt text is looking at the first of them.Read the guide →
- REPReading an audit reportThe findings are the part everybody opens first. The header is the part that decides what any of them are worth.Read the guide →
- UDUniversal design and the CRPDAn American architect coined the phrase in the 1980s. Seven principles followed in 1997. Then a UN convention gave it a legal definition, and that definition is the one that reaches your website.Read the guide →
- KSKKiosks and closed functionalityYour screen reader lives on your own device. A ticket machine will not let you bring it, and every standard that matters has had to work around that one fact.Read the guide →
- ESTCosting your findings listNobody can quote your repair from your report, and you can still build an estimate that survives a meeting. It takes an afternoon and every assumption goes on the front page.Read the guide →
Comparisons
Two things people mix up, told apart.
- 3XGap analysis vs auditGap analysis, audit, conformance evaluation. There is no industry definition of any of the three, so this page says what we mean by each and what each one hands you.Read the guide →
- RERetest vs. new auditNot the date. Four questions about what has moved since somebody last looked, and each one ends in an answer you can act on.Read the guide →
- 3Three words, three argumentsNobody asks about these three words out of curiosity. They ask because somebody in a meeting is using one of them to mean another, and a decision is waiting on it.Read the guide →
- VSAccessibility vs. usabilityA site can be perfectly usable and legally inaccessible. It can also pass every WCAG rule and still be miserable to use.Read the guide →
- AAALevel AA vs. AAAAAA sounds like the responsible choice. W3C advises against requiring it across a site, and the reason is worth understanding before you write it into anything.Read the guide →
- LAWWCAG vs. the ADAPeople use the two words as if they were interchangeable. Understanding the difference tells you exactly what you are on the hook for.Read the guide →
- ?Free scan vs. auditA scan is a real thing that finds real problems. It also cannot answer the question most people are actually asking.Read the guide →
- <>Link vs. buttonOne navigates, one acts. Getting it wrong changes what is announced, which keys work, and whether anything happens at all.Read the guide →
- 3Report, ACR, statementSomebody sent you a list with all three names on it. They are three separate documents, they answer three separate questions, and only one of them is usually named in a law.Read the guide →
- EDUHECVAT, ACR or auditA higher education procurement office asks for a HECVAT, a VPAT and sometimes an audit. They are three different instruments, and the confusion costs suppliers weeks.Read the guide →
- INDInternal vs. independentThe standard has no opinion about who tests your site. So the choice is not about credibility in the abstract. It is about what you need to produce and who is going to read it.Read the guide →
- JOBAudit vs. remediationDiagnosis, repair and verification are different pieces of work. Buying them as a bundle is how the verification quietly stops meaning anything.Read the guide →
Design and visual
The half that gets decided before any code exists.
- UXAccessible web designContrast, target size, focus states, error wording and reading order all get settled before anyone opens an editor. That half of the work belongs to the design file.Read the guide →
- AaFonts and typographyThere is no official list of accessible fonts, and anyone selling you one is guessing. What matters is a handful of letterform properties and the sizes you set them at.Read the guide →
- ◑Colour and contrastContrast is the failure detected on more home pages than any other, and the easiest to settle, because it is arithmetic. The interesting part is the cases arithmetic cannot reach.Read the guide →
- [DS]Design systemsA design system is the only place in a product where one decision reaches every page. It is also the only place where one defect does.Read the guide →
Building it right
How the underlying pieces are meant to work.
- NAMEHow accessible names workOne algorithm, one pass, and the first thing on the list that produces text wins. Almost everything odd about naming follows from that.Read the guide →
- DESCHow accessible descriptions workA name replaces. A description adds. Two computations run on the same element, and only one of them can erase what people can see.Read the guide →
- 53The 53 input purposesWCAG names 53 purposes a form field can declare. The list is closed, it has not changed since 2018, and hardly anyone prints it in full.Read the guide →
- TABKeyboard accessibilityIf one check had to stand for all of accessibility, this is it. Unplug the mouse and try to use your own site.Read the guide →
- ARIAARIA explainedARIA tells assistive technology what a custom control is. It is also the fastest way to make a page worse, because it changes what is announced without changing what is there.Read the guide →
- CCVideo, captions, transcriptsThree different requirements that people treat as one. Knowing which applies to your video saves both money and an argument with your agency.Read the guide →
- [A]Native app accessibilityDifferent standard, same obligations, and a platform that does more of the work than the web does.Read the guide →
- ALTHow to write alt textWorking out which treatment an image needs is the hard part. The writing is easy after that.Read the guide →
- ≈Motion and animationSome motion is decoration. Some of it makes people physically unwell, and a small amount of it can trigger a seizure.Read the guide →
- ⏱Time limits and timeoutsA twenty-minute checkout window is generous for a mouse user and tight for somebody scanning with a switch device.Read the guide →
- ◎Cognitive accessibilityAlmost everything that helps here resists being written as a testable rule, so the conformance checklist runs out long before the work does.Read the guide →
- £Ecommerce accessibilityEcommerce draws more accessibility complaints than any other category, for an obvious reason. A broken checkout is a customer who cannot buy.Read the guide →
- </>Third-party scripts and embedsChat bubbles, payment frames, review widgets, consent banners, and whatever your visitors posted this morning. You did not write any of it, and all of it is on your domain.Read the guide →
Interface patterns
One page per interface pattern, for when you are building the thing rather than reading about it.
- [ ]Accessible formsForms are where accessibility stops being abstract. A broken form is a lost sale, a lost enquiry, a lost application, and it is usually four small fixes away from working.Read the guide →
- ▦Tables and dataA sighted reader resolves a table visually without thinking. A screen reader user needs those relationships written into the markup.Read the guide →
- [×]Modals and dialogsA modal has four jobs beyond looking right. The browser will do all four, if you let it.Read the guide →
- ‹›Carousels and slidersAlmost every carousel plugin autoplays by default and ships no working pause control. That is a Level A failure out of the box.Read the guide →
- ◲Cookie banners and consentIt loads last, it covers everything, somebody else wrote it, and it is the first thing a keyboard user meets on your site.Read the guide →
- ▂▅Charts and data visualisationA chart exists because the numbers were hard to read as numbers. Describing it well means saying what it shows, not what it looks like.Read the guide →
- [≡]Navigation menusNavigation is the first thing on the page and the first thing keyboard users have to survive.Read the guide →
- [⊟]Tabs and accordionsTwo patterns that look similar, behave differently, and get confused for each other constantly.Read the guide →
- [⌄]Autocomplete and comboboxA field that suggests as you type has to narrate itself. Most of them stay silent.Read the guide →
- [//]Date pickersThe calendar is the fun part to build. The input beside it is the part people actually need.Read the guide →
- [?]Tooltips and popoversWCAG has a criterion aimed almost entirely at this one pattern. Most tooltips fail it.Read the guide →
- [!]Notifications and toastsA message that appears in the corner and fades after four seconds was written for one kind of user.Read the guide →
- [▶]Video playersThe native player is accessible. Almost every replacement for it is not.Read the guide →
- [↔]Drag and dropWCAG 2.2 added a criterion for this exact pattern, and most implementations were already failing it.Read the guide →
- [Q]Site searchThree separate accessibility problems that most implementations treat as one.Read the guide →
- [↑]File uploadThe native control is accessible. The custom wrapper around it usually is not.Read the guide →
- [**]Password fieldsWCAG 2.2 added a rule about authentication because this is where the web loses people entirely.Read the guide →
- [∞]Infinite scrollA pattern that works well with a thumb and badly with almost everything else.Read the guide →
- [1-9]PaginationThe oldest pattern on the web, still commonly built as a row of unlabeled digits.Read the guide →
- [◉]MapsAlmost everything people need from a map can be given to them as text, and usually should be.Read the guide →
- [>]BreadcrumbsA small pattern with two details that decide whether it helps or just adds noise.Read the guide →
- [404]Error and empty pagesA 404 is the one page you hope nobody sees, which is exactly why nobody tests it.Read the guide →
Documents and PDFs
The part most owners forget until somebody asks.
- PDFPDF accessibilityYour menu, your price list, your annual report. If it is a PDF, the same law that covers your website covers it, and most PDFs fail on the same eight things.Read the guide →
- TAGHow to tag a PDFTagging is the invisible layer that turns painted ink into a document a screen reader can read. Three tools, one sequence, about twenty minutes for a typical file.Read the guide →
- [W]Word, PowerPoint and ExcelEvery inaccessible PDF started as a document somebody could have fixed in about four minutes.Read the guide →
- [E]EPUB and e-booksThe one category the accessibility act calls out by name where the format was already built to help.Read the guide →
- DOCAre documents in the auditYour price list, your application form, your annual report. The standard reached all three the day you uploaded them, and the quote you were sent may not have.Read the guide →
- GENGenerated invoices and statementsA billing run makes a new PDF for every customer, every month. There is no version of file-by-file review that ever finishes, so the evidence has to attach somewhere else.Read the guide →
- SIGE-signature journeysThe platform sends the email, draws the fields and captures the signature. The contract inside it is the one you wrote, and nobody else is going to tag it.Read the guide →
- EMBEmbedded PDF viewersYou paid to have the file tagged, dropped it into a viewer, and it still does not work. Three things are in play, and only one of them is the document.Read the guide →
- ALTDoes the HTML version replace the PDFSomebody published a web page next to the file and called it solved. There are four conditions, they are joined by and, and the one that fails is usually the boring one.Read the guide →
Compliance and the law
Who the law reaches, what it excuses, and the paperwork it asks for.
- §Briefs and contractsThe cheapest accessibility work is the kind you specified before anybody wrote any code.Read the guide →
- ACRWhat a VPAT cannot tell youA supplier sent you a report and almost every row says Supports. Four things that document is structurally unable to say, whatever the vendor typed into it.Read the guide →
- EXWho is exemptMost exemptions take a category of content out of scope, not an organization. The lists are short, the conditions attached to them are strict, and being exempt from the standard is not the same as being free of the duty.Read the guide →
- UBUndue burdenUndue burden, disproportionate burden and fundamental alteration are three different tests wearing similar names. All of them put the burden of proof on the party claiming the burden, which is the opposite of what most owners assume.Read the guide →
- ADA3The ADA and web-only businessesIt depends where you get sued, and the split is not the one most summaries describe. No federal appeals court has ever held that a standalone website is a place of public accommodation, and the decision that held the opposite was vacated.Read the guide →
- VPATVPAT and ACRA procurement team asked for your VPAT and you are not sure what that is. It is a template. Filled in honestly, it is the fastest way to win a public-sector deal.Read the guide →
- §Accessibility statementHalf the world's accessibility laws now expect a published statement. Most of the ones we read either promise too much or say nothing at all.Read the guide →
- RFPWriting the audit briefMost audit briefs ask for a page count and a price. The ones that come back useful ask for journeys, a tested baseline, and the report items the method already requires.Read the guide →
- BUYEvidence to require of vendorsYou are buying software and somebody has to decide what accessibility evidence to require. The largest technology buyer in the world asks for two documents, not one, and reserves the right to check.Read the guide →
- MAPOne audit, two documentsYou need a conformance report for a buyer and a statement for your site. One evaluation can feed both. What it cannot do is make either document say more than the evaluation found.Read the guide →
- REReusing one auditThe second customer asks for the same evidence the first one did. Whether you can send the same document depends on what was evaluated and what they asked for, and almost never on how old it is.Read the guide →
- !Somebody reported a barrierA message arrives saying a person could not finish something on your site. This is the technical half: what to write down, how to reproduce it, and what the retest has to show.Read the guide →
- DEMOThe procurement demoA buyer has asked for a live accessibility demonstration rather than another document. It is a fair request, it is bounded evidence, and the preparation is mostly agreement rather than rehearsal.Read the guide →
- ASKA customer asked for a VPATThe email says they need your VPAT by Friday. The first move is not to open the template. It is to work out which document they are actually asking for.Read the guide →
- QNRAccessibility questionnairesA spreadsheet of accessibility questions arrived with a due date on it. Every row wants a different kind of proof, and one of the honest answers is not yet.Read the guide →
- MAPRoadmap before conformanceA roadmap is a plan. It is not conformance, it is not repair, and writing one moves no row in your report. It is still the right thing to send.Read the guide →
Testing and tools
What to run, what it catches, and what it misses.
- EMWCAG-EM, the audit methodFive steps, a baseline agreed before testing starts, and a structured sample with a random tenth on top. Then the sentence that says a sample can never speak for a whole site.Read the guide →
- PGSHow many pages to auditPages are the wrong unit. Templates, journeys, states and layouts are the units, and the page number is whatever those four add up to once somebody has written them down.Read the guide →
- PREPPreparing for an auditPreparing for an audit is an afternoon of writing things down and one decision about access. Access is the part with somebody else's queue in front of it, which is why it is the one to start first.Read the guide →
- CIAccessibility checks in CIAutomation is bad at judgement and very good at never getting bored. A build pipeline is exactly the right place for it.Read the guide →
- TESTHow to test a websiteYou do not need a budget or a specialist to find most of what is wrong. You need a keyboard, a browser, and about two hours.Read the guide →
- VSAutomated vs. manualScanners are fast, cheap, and right about what they check. The trouble is what they do not check, and how confidently a green score hides it.Read the guide →
- TOOLFree tools comparedThree free tools, three different answers on the same page. Here is what each one is actually measuring, and why the overlap matters less than the gap.Read the guide →
- SRScreen reader testingYou can learn enough of a screen reader in twenty minutes to find real problems. Knowing the limits of that is as useful as the skill itself.Read the guide →
- ⌘Mobile accessibilityPhones are where most browsing happens, and several WCAG rules were written with exactly that in mind. Here is what changes on a small screen.Read the guide →
- ATAssistive technologyMost of it is free and already installed. All of it can only work with what your markup actually exposes.Read the guide →
- [//]Testing with disabled usersA conformance audit tells you whether the rules are met. This tells you whether the thing can actually be used.Read the guide →
- SMPLSample vs. whole siteConformance is defined for a page. A claim can cover a whole site. The gap between those two facts is where most accessibility overclaiming lives, and closing it takes one sentence rather than more pages.Read the guide →
- AUTHScoping behind a loginThe URL list that scopes a website stops describing anything once there is a login in front of it. What replaces it is a short grid of roles, states and tasks, agreed before anyone quotes.Read the guide →
- MTRXBrowser and screen reader matrixNo standard names the combinations, and anyone handing you a required matrix has written it themselves. What the standard asks for instead is a list you agree before testing, and then publish.Read the guide →
- DSGNDesign review vs. auditA design file genuinely settles a set of accessibility questions, and genuinely cannot settle another set. The line between them is not about effort or seniority. It is about which properties only exist at runtime.Read the guide →
- BLDStaging vs. productionThe environment question is really a build question. What decides it is not which server the site is on, but how far that server's copy has drifted from the one your users meet.Read the guide →
- PORTMulti-site portfoliosTwelve sites on one template are not one accessibility problem. They are one problem twelve times, plus whatever each site added on its own, and the two halves are bought differently.Read the guide →
- LANGLanguage versionsMost of the answer sits in a clause almost nobody has read. Support has to be tested in the human language of the content, which means a result proved in English is not thereby proved in Arabic.Read the guide →
- CQCaption quality across a libraryNobody can watch four hundred videos. So you decide what acceptable means before you watch anything, sample against it, and write the failures down with timestamps.Read the guide →
- SAASWhite-label and configurable SaaSEvery theme, flag and regional variant is another rendering somebody has to open. The ones nobody opened are the ones the report cannot speak for.Read the guide →
- LMSLMS platform vs. course contentThe vendor tested the platform. Your administrator configured it. Your instructors authored the courses. Those are three evaluations with three owners.Read the guide →
- CHATChatbot audit scopeThe widget is testable. What the widget says next is content nobody has seen yet, and no evaluation can speak for all of it.Read the guide →
- AUTHSign-in, MFA and CAPTCHAThe rule asks whether a complete path exists that never makes somebody remember or transcribe anything. One step can break it, so the audit has to reach all of them.Read the guide →
- BIPower BI report auditsFive things work with no configuration. Five more only work if somebody filled them in. An audit is mostly about the second list.Read the guide →
- GRIDEditable data gridsInside a grid a screen reader hears only what can take focus. Virtualization decides what exists to take it. Both are configuration, and both are usually left at the default.Read the guide →
- 3DSPayments and 3-D SecureThe card challenge is content you did not write, cannot style and may not even see in testing. That changes what a report can honestly claim.Read the guide →
- CMSCMS migration checksReplatforming quietly drops alt text, labels and focus styles. Whether you can prove it was the migration depends entirely on what you recorded first.Read the guide →
- BOOKBooking changes and cancellationsPicking a date is the part everyone tests. Holding the slot, changing it and cancelling it are the parts that decide whether somebody can use your business.Read the guide →
- ATSJob applications and ATSOne process, two systems, and a handoff in the middle that most evaluations stop at. Everything worth finding is on the far side of it.Read the guide →
- KYCIdentity verificationDocument capture, a selfie, a permission prompt, a processing wait and a handoff to somebody else's system. Five things a sign-in audit never touches.Read the guide →
- EXAMOnline examsScheduling, delivery, proctoring and accommodations are usually four systems with four reports. The first question is which one you meant.Read the guide →
- DRAWWhiteboards and diagram editorsOperating the canvas is the vendor's problem. What your team draws on it is yours. Most evaluations answer the first and quietly imply the second.Read the guide →
- RDYDeveloper-ready findingsSeven fields do the work. The one that decides everything downstream is the criterion number, and three of the failures we meet most often get filed under the wrong one.Read the guide →
- DISDisputing a findingMost disputes are not arguments about evidence. They are two people holding different yardsticks, and the yardstick is a thing you can go and read.Read the guide →
- AGEHow long a report lastsNothing in the standard puts a shelf life on evidence. What ages a report is change, and there are nine changes that do it, each one putting more in doubt than it touches.Read the guide →
- RTSWhat a retest provesIt proves that the findings you were handed came back fixed, regressed or still open, on the same pages, against fresh evidence carrying a new date.Read the guide →
- 2.2Moving a 2.1 audit to 2.2Six criteria arrived at Level A and AA, one was removed, and four defined terms changed underneath ten of the rules you already tested. That last part is why the shortcut everybody tries does not hold.Read the guide →
Accessibility and growth
What accessibility work does for the rest of the business.
- ↻Keeping it accessibleAccessibility does not decay on its own. It decays because the next change did not know about it.Read the guide →
- SEOAccessibility and SEOAccessibility is not a ranking factor. But eight of the things it requires are things search engines have rewarded for years, and you were going to do them anyway.Read the guide →
- [T]Training your teamThe same session run at the wrong moment teaches nobody anything.Read the guide →
These run long on purpose. If you want the short form instead, the printable checklists give you the sequence without the reasoning, the A to Z glossary settles one word at a time, and the dated insight posts cover what changed and when.
Find out where your own site stands.
The free scan opens up to 10 of your pages in a real browser and maps the failures a machine can settle to the fixes that resolve them. It runs one desktop viewport, so it will not catch everything, and it says which rules it never looked at. No signup, no widget.