A website accessibility audit is the testing of the accessibility compliance of a site. Our audits include a written report as well as a consultation to explain what needs to be fixed.
Higher quality audits like ours include human testing with a trained professional who can assess the context as well as the content of your site. Be wary of “audits” that only perform an automated check of your site (perhaps using a tool like this one), as automated checkers only catch about 30% of web accessibility issues, and may generate both false negatives and false positives.
Sampling Audit
Most of our audits are a “Sampling Audit”. In this type of audit, our human testers take a representative sample of pages and posts on your site and give you information about exactly what needs to change for those pages. You would then be responsible for extrapolating these changes throughout the rest of your site.
For example, if the images on at least some of the pages or posts that we sample are missing alt text, then you likely have images on many other pages that are missing alt text. You would then need to go page-by-page to investigate and potentially remediate.
This audit includes up to an hour of consultation time to answer any questions you may have about the audit results.
Our human testing audits incude:
- General issues for the whole site such as but not limited to
- menu compliance
- keyboard navigation that is controlled by your theme.
- If included, we will audit forms on the website – often this is the contact form – for any issues related to forms.
- 10 pages or posts that you choose
- We suggest including a variety of layouts
- We recommend analysis of some of your more highly trafficked pages/posts.
- If you run a shop or ecommerce, you probably want us to look at at least the shop and one single product page, and potentially the checkout.
- You might want to make sure that we look at a variety of pages over time, potentially also a variety of authors if you have multiple authors.
What does the final audit report look like?
The deliverable on our audit is a 15+ page PDF report. It outlines things that need to be changed, and exactly what needs to be done to bring them into compliance. The fee for the sampling audit is set based on the number of unique templates and layouts included in the audit. A typical audit might include 10 pages or views, but you can also have only one page audited or include more than 10 pages or views.
Who can we hire to do the remediation?
You do not need to use us to do the remediation work. You should be able to take the audit report to any developer with accessibility training and have them do the work.
If you prefer, we do take on accessibility remediation work. As a part of our audit report, we will give a quote on remediation tasks needed on your site.
Full Website Accessibility Audit
Some organizations need to get the full assessment of what is going on with accessibility on their website. Full site audits are especially critical for clients who interface with governmental agencies, receive state or federal grant money, and/or provide educational, financial or health services.
What does a full site audit entail?
In a full site audit, our auditors look at every single page and post of your website. It will give you a detailed report of exactly what needs to change on every page. Because preparing this detailed and thorough information is very labor-intensive, full site audits can run into many thousands of dollars.
Even with a site that only has a few hundred posts/pages, each needs to be handled on an individual basis. What’s causing an error on one page, is not necessarily repeated on all pages. Many pages, especially if pages are created over time by more than one author, present unique challenges.
The value of this approach is that it ensures that every issue is addressed in terms of ADA compliance. This can potentially avoid a costly lawsuit, or loss of grant money if items are missed due to a more overview approach. If you are looking for a full site audit, please contact us for a quote.
Ongoing Support
After remediation, we are there for you as a resource as you update your site. We have assisted our clients with maintaining compliance. Here are just a few ways that we can provide assistance at our hourly rate.
- evaluating and choosing accessible plugins
- creating accessible PDFs
- creating accessible infographics
- regular accessibility checks
Want to chat about your potential needs and get acquainted to see if we are a good fit for you. Let’s schedule a phone or Zoom call. You can use this scheduling link to set up a meeting.