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UX Accessibility Audit is an essential process for ensuring your website or application is usable by people with various disabilities. Conducting a thorough UX Accessibility Audit helps identify barriers that may prevent users from interacting with your design, whether they have visual, auditory, motor, or cognitive impairments. This guide will walk you through the key steps of performing an UX Accessibility Audit, from understanding the principles of accessibility to using tools and techniques for testing. By prioritizing accessibility in your design process, you can create inclusive, user-friendly experiences for all users while meeting legal requirements and enhancing your brand’s reputation.
What is an Accessibility Audit?
An Accessibility Audit is a comprehensive evaluation of digital products —like websites or mobile apps —to identify barriers that may prevent people with disabilities from using them effectively. Ultimately, the goal of a digital accessibility audit is to ensure digital content is inclusive, bridging the gap between the product and its diverse user base to promote equal access and opportunity for all.
Here’s an overview of the key areas assessed during an Accessibility Audit:
- Accessibility of Text: This evaluates the readability, visibility, and usability of text content, including font size, color contrast, semantic HTML structure, and clarity of language.
- Accessibility of Images, Audio, and Video: This focuses on ensuring non-text content is accessible to all users, including providing descriptive alt text for images, captions or transcripts for audio, and subtitles or audio descriptions for videos.
- Accessibility of Interactive Content and Transactions: This assesses the accessibility of interactive elements such as forms, buttons, and navigation, covering aspects like form labels, error messages, keyboard navigation, and visual feedback for focus indicators.
- Accessibility of Technology: This examines the underlying technology to ensure compatibility with assistive technologies, as well as error prevention mechanisms and recovery options to support all users in completing tasks efficiently.
Types of Accessibility Audit
1. Manual Accessibility Audits
A manual UX Accessibility Audit is an in-depth evaluation where evaluators carefully examine the user flows and UI screens of a digital product across various browsers, devices, and assistive technologies. Its primary purpose is to uncover accessibility barriers that may impact users with disabilities. Identified issues are thoroughly documented, along with detailed insights and actionable recommendations for improvement.
Pros of Manual Accessibility Audits:
- Can detect issues that automated tools might miss, such as contextual errors, improper alt text, or misleading labels.
- Can provide detailed recommendations tailored to specific issues.
Cons of Manual Accessibility Audits:
- Require significant time and effort to test all user flows and UI screens.
- Can be costly since it demands highly skilled testers with in-depth knowledge of accessibility standards.
- Difficult to scale for complex digital products compared to automated tools.
2. Automated Accessibility Audits
An Automated UX Accessibility Audit utilizes software tools to scan a digital product for accessibility issues based on established guidelines such as WCAG. These tools examine code and UI components across multiple pages or screens, swiftly identifying potential barriers for users with disabilities and offering suggestions for remediation.
Pros of Automated Accessibility Audits:
- Provide standardized results without human error or bias.
- Save time and cost by quickly scanning complex digital products with minimal human intervention.
- Can be run repeatedly which ensures accessibility compliance is maintained during updates and iterations.
Cons of Automated Accessibility Audits:
- May miss contextual issues like poorly written alt text or inaccessible workflows.
- Results can include errors that don’t impact accessibility or overlook actual barriers.
- Cannot assess real-world usability or how users interact with the product.
3. Hybrid Accessibility Audits
A hybrid UX Accessibility Audit combines the strengths of both manual and automated testing to deliver a comprehensive evaluation of your digital product’s accessibility. Automated tools quickly identify common technical issues, while manual testing addresses more contextual barriers that tools may miss. This approach ensures a thorough, efficient audit process, striking the perfect balance between speed, accuracy, and real-world usability.
Pros of Hybrid Accessibility Audits:
- Save time and costs while addressing critical user-centric issues.
- Identify both technical barriers and contextual usability challenges.
Cons of Hybrid Accessibility Audits:
- Still require skilled testers to integrate manual and automated methods effectively.
- Demand extra effort to consolidate overlapping findings from both approaches.
To design a seamless Web/App, you may want to read: Optimize Your Digital Product with Information Architecture Audit
How to Conduct an Accessibility Audit
1. Define clear Scope and Objectives
Establishing a solid foundation is crucial for a successful digital accessibility audit. This involves aligning the team on the key goals and scope:
Set Specific Goals: Clearly outline what the audit should achieve, such as:
- Ensuring compliance with WCAG 2.1 Level AA standards on core pages.
- Removing barriers in account registration or login flows for screen reader users.
- Enhancing keyboard navigation for form completion and submission.
Determine the Scope: Focus on high-impact areas to audit, like high-traffic pages, critical user flows (e.g., checkout, registration, payment), and compatibility with assistive technologies.
2. Run Automated Accessibility Tests
Once the objectives and scope are defined, it’s ideal to begin with automated testing in a UX Accessibility Audit to identify systemic issues across your digital product. This approach enables evaluators to quickly pinpoint areas that need further manual inspection, laying the foundation for a thorough and seamless audit process.
To make the most of automated accessibility testing, you should:
- Choose Reliable Tools: Start with Accessibility Audit tools like Axe, WAVE, or Lighthouse to identify programmatic issues such as missing alt text, incorrect ARIA roles, low contrast ratios, and invalid HTML structure. These tools offer a baseline assessment by highlighting technical violations.
- Review and Prioritize Findings: Carefully review the reports generated by the tools. Categorize the findings by severity and map them to WCAG standards. This helps identify the most critical issues that require immediate attention during the manual audit phase.
3. Perform Manual Accessibility Audits
Building on automated findings, manual audits in a UX Accessibility Audit focus on usability and real-world scenarios, ensuring that the design is both functional and effective for people with disabilities. This step offers a human-centered perspective that automated tools alone cannot provide, enhancing the overall user experience for all.
To make the most of manual accessibility testing, you should:
- Test Real-World Scenarios: Simulate user tasks using assistive technologies (screen readers, keyboard-only navigation,…) to uncover practical usability challenges.
- Evaluate Contextual Accessibility: Identify issues that require human judgment (unclear focus indicators, confusing interactive elements, ambiguous error messages,…)
- Validate Automated Fixes: Confirm that issues flagged during automated testing have been properly addressed and aligned with accessibility standards.
By focusing on these areas, manual audits provide a deeper understanding of how users with disabilities interact with the design, ensuring it meets both technical requirements and real-world needs.
4. Prioritize Findings and Implement Remediation
Following the completion of automated and manual audits, the next step is to prioritize the identified issues by their impact on user experience, alignment with business goals, and ease of resolution:
- Critical: Issues that block accessibility, such as missing form labels, non-functional keyboard navigation, or videos without captions.
- High: Significant usability problems like clickable elements with unclear purpose (e.g., “Read more”) or improper use of ARIA attributes.
- Medium: Moderate issues like skipped heading levels (e.g., H2 followed by H4) or links that open in new tabs without warnings.
- Low: Minor concerns such as slightly low color contrast on secondary elements or redundant alt text for decorative images.
This structured categorization helps prioritize the most pressing issues, allowing for a methodical approach to remediation that delivers meaningful improvements efficiently.
5. Ensure Ongoing Accessibility
A UX Accessibility Audit is not a one-time task but an ongoing commitment to ensuring your digital assets remain inclusive. To maintain long-term compliance and user satisfaction, it’s essential to integrate regular monitoring, continuous team education, and accessibility into your workflows. This proactive approach ensures that accessibility is consistently prioritized as your assets evolve, supporting an inclusive experience for all users.
To ensure an Ongoing Accessibility:
- Schedule Regular Checks: Regularly review your product to ensure it meets accessibility standards and remains user-friendly. Verify that updates or new features don’t introduce new barriers.
- Train Your Team: Educate product designers, developers, and UX writers on accessibility best practices. Ongoing training helps them identify and fix issues proactively.
By making accessibility a core part of your culture and practices, you can ensure your digital experiences are inclusive and equitable for all users, now and in the future.
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Conclusion
Accessibility is no longer optional for digital products—it’s essential. Beyond legal compliance, prioritizing accessibility empowers businesses to connect with a broader audience and provide more inclusive experiences. Conducting an Accessibility Audit would be the critical first step in creating a seamless, user-friendly product for everyone.
If you’re looking for an accessibility consultant to evaluate how accessible your product is for all users, our team of design experts is here to help. At Morhover, we specialize in delivering comprehensive UX Accessibility Audit services across various digital platforms. From web accessibility audit to in-depth SaaS platform reviews, we ensure your product aligns with industry best practices.
Contact us today for a FREE consultation! Let us help you address accessibility challenges, refine your accessibility strategy, and transform your product into a truly inclusive experience.
Do you know about: Understanding UX Content Audits: Definition, Process and Tools
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
1. What is Accessibility Design?
Accessibility design involves creating products, services, and environments that are usable by everyone. It ensures inclusivity by eliminating barriers and enabling equal access to functionality and information for all users, regardless of their physical, sensory, or cognitive limitations.
2. Why is accessibility audit important?
An accessibility audit creates an inclusive, user-centered design that caters to everyone, including individuals with disabilities. It ensures compliance with standards like WCAG, reducing legal risks while enhancing usability and strengthening brand reputation. By making products accessible, businesses can expand their market reach, align with SEO best practices, and gain valuable insights to improve user experiences. Addressing accessibility problems early also minimizes costs and ensures a proactive, future-ready approach to design and development.
3. When Should You Conduct an Accessibility Audit?
Brands should conduct accessibility audits at key stages of a project or company’s lifecycle: 1) During the initial planning phase to embed accessibility considerations early and avoid expensive fixes later; 2) After significant updates to ensure no new barriers have been introduced; and 3) Regularly to maintain inclusivity and compliance with accessibility standards over time.
4. What are Common Accessibility Issues?
Common accessibility issues include Inappropriate Navigation Links, Insufficient Color Contrast, Missing or incorrect image alt text, Disorganized Focus Order, Lack of Keyboard Accessibility, Ambiguous or Missing Link Text, etc.
5. What can you do with the Accessibility Audit Report?
An accessibility audit report helps you systematically improve accessibility and facilitate design for disabilities. Categorizing the identified issues based on severity—critical, high, medium, or low—to address the most urgent problems first. Delegate tasks to the relevant teams—developers for code fixes, content writers for content issues, and designers for visual changes. Once resolved, retest your product to ensure improvements and update the audit as needed.