What We Keep Finding
Navigation failures are gate failures. They do not cost a feature, they cost the whole site. Dropdowns that open on hover and never on Enter, which is a Level A keyboard failure before it is anything else. Mega menus a keyboard enters and cannot exit. Mobile drawers that open while focus stays trapped in the page behind them, so the menu exists visually and nowhere else.
The exit question has a second half that gets dropped everywhere, and dropping it turns a conforming menu into a false finding. The rule does not say focus must leave by Tab. It says focus must be able to leave by keyboard, and that if it takes something other than Tab or the arrow keys, the user has to be told how. So a mega menu that closes on Escape and says so conforms. One that closes on Escape and says nothing does not.
Then there is the disclosure state, which is where automated tools are structurally blind. W3C files fifteen live automated rules under the criterion covering a control's name, role and state. Ten of them name that criterion as a requirement, and seven of those ten check only that a name is not empty rather than that it is right. A menu button whose expanded state never updates passes every one of the seven and fails a real user on the first press.
At the very top sits the humble skip link. It pays to know what the rule actually asks for, because it is not a skip link. Landmarks and section headings satisfy it too. But the two routes serve different people, and this is the distinction nobody draws. Landmarks help a screen reader user jump the menu. They do nothing at all for a sighted keyboard-only user, who still tabs through 40 items on every page. So a landmark-only site conforms and still has the problem.
What We Check
- Walk the entire navigation by keyboard, so open, browse, close, escape
- Test disclosure buttons for state announcements, the thing no automated rule checks
- Check the mobile drawer for focus containment and restoration
- Verify keyboard users can bypass the menu, by skip link or by landmarks
- Check any exit that needs an unusual key says so, which is the rule's forgotten half
- Confirm current-page marking is announced, not just colored
- Check whether site search plus one other route already satisfies the multiple-ways rule
What You Get
Every service on this site runs the same three-pass engine: an automated scan, an expert review of all 55 WCAG 2.2 A and AA rules, and a hands-on session with a professional blind screen-reader user. You get one report with every finding screenshotted, ranked by user impact, and linked to its fix. Your team fixes, we verify: the re-audit is half price within 3 months.
The format is not a mystery either. Read the sample report before you spend anything.
The Honest Limit
One honest limit, with a caution attached. Menu fixes are pattern rebuilds more than one-line patches, so the report links the exact accessible pattern for each broken piece, which turns a scary rebuild into copying a known answer. Two cautions on that. W3C's own reference code carries a warning that it is not meant for production, and it deliberately does not work around gaps in assistive technology support. So the pattern is a starting point rather than a finished component. And navigation is the one journey that is not a page, since it sits on all of them. So it gets audited across whichever pages you pick rather than eating a slot of its own.
What It Costs
Rapid Audit: $499, up to 10 pages you pick, report in 5 business days. Standard Audit: $1,499, up to 25 pages in 10 business days. Flat rates, no discovery calls, and a real blind screen-reader user on every engagement. Pick your pages. We bring the humans.
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