A 15-minute accessibility check anyone can do

A full accessibility audit takes time, expertise and testing with assistive technology. But many of the problems that stop people using a website are visible to anyone who knows where to look. You can find a lot of them in a quarter of an hour, with nothing more than a keyboard and the browser you already use.

This is the quick check we suggest to clients who want to know where they stand before they spend any money. Pick three pages: your home page, your most important content page, and a page with a form, such as contact or booking. Then work through the steps below.

Put the mouse away (4 minutes)

Click in the browser’s address bar, then press Tab repeatedly to move through the page. Shift and Tab goes backwards. Enter follows links and presses buttons.

As you go, check:

• Can you always see where you are? There should be a clear outline or highlight on the focused item.
• Does focus ever disappear behind a sticky header, cookie banner or chat button?
• Does the order make sense, roughly following the page from top to bottom?
• Can you open and close the menu, and use every button and link?
• If a pop-up opens, can you close it with the keyboard, and does focus go somewhere sensible afterwards?

If you get stuck anywhere, so will someone who can’t use a mouse. This is often the single most revealing test.

Zoom in (2 minutes)

Use your browser’s zoom (Control and plus, or Command and plus on a Mac) to zoom to 200 per cent, then keep going to 400 per cent. Text should get bigger and the layout should rearrange into a single column, without words being cut off, overlapping or forcing you to scroll sideways to read a line.

Check the colours (2 minutes)

Look at your body text, link text and any text on coloured backgrounds or over photos. Is it easy to read on your phone in daylight? Pale grey text and white text over busy images are the usual problems.

For a more exact answer, a free contrast checker will tell you whether a colour pair meets the standard. The WCAG contrast requirement at level AA is a ratio of at least 4.5 to 1 for normal text and 3 to 1 for large text. Also check that colour isn’t the only signal: a form error shown only in red, or links that differ from the surrounding text only by colour, will be missed by some people.

Look at the images (2 minutes)

Alt text is the description a screen reader reads out instead of an image. To see it, you can right-click an image and inspect it, or use a free browser extension that shows alt text on the page.

• Images that carry meaning, such as a photo of your team or a chart, should have a short, useful description.
• Decorative images should have empty alt text, so they’re skipped.
• Text inside images, like a poster or a flyer saved as a picture, should also be available as real text on the page.

Check the headings (2 minutes)

Headings are how many screen reader users get around a page, jumping from one to the next. A browser extension that lists headings will show you the outline in seconds.

Is there one main heading at the top that says what the page is about? Do the other headings describe the sections under them, in a sensible order? Watch for text that looks like a heading but isn’t marked up as one, and for headings chosen because of their size rather than their place in the outline.

Try the form (3 minutes)

Forms are where accessibility problems cost you enquiries, bookings and sales. Go back to the keyboard and fill in your form without the mouse.

• Does every field have a visible label that stays there once you start typing? Placeholder text alone disappears.
• Submit the form empty. Are the errors clear, in words, and next to the right fields?
• Are you asked for the same information twice?
• If there’s a puzzle or a test to prove you’re human, is there another way through?

What to do with what you find

Write down each problem, the page it’s on and what you were doing. Most of what this check turns up, like missing focus outlines, low-contrast colours, missing labels and vague alt text, can be fixed without a redesign.

This check won’t catch everything. It doesn’t replace testing with a screen reader or with people who use assistive technology every day, and it’s not a formal assessment against the standard. Our note on what WCAG 2.2 changed covers the newer requirements in more detail. But it’s an honest first look, and it’s free.

Our rule of thumb

Run this check whenever you change your theme, add a new form or launch a new section of the site. Fifteen minutes is a small price for finding out before your visitors do.

If you’ve found problems and want a hand fixing them, or you’d like a fuller review, have a look at our accessibility services or tell us what you’re working on. We’ll tell you what matters most and what can wait.