Definitive Guide to Accessibility Testing

You’ve optimized your website for SEO. You’ve invested in UX design, nailed your branding, and streamlined your content. But if you’re not testing for accessibility — you’re leaving a significant gap in your website strategy and user experience.

Accessibility issues aren’t always visible — but they can break the experience for users with disabilities, particularly those who rely on assistive technologies. They can also lead to costly lawsuits, lost conversions, and reputational damage. And the longer they go unnoticed, the more expensive they become to fix.

That’s where web accessibility testing comes in. When done right, it becomes a key part of quality assurance — not just a compliance checkbox. 

Below, we’ll break down the different types of accessibility testing, explore how and when to use them, and share practical tips for building a scalable, effective testing process that fits your organization’s workflow. 

What is Accessibility Testing?

Accessibility testing is a type of usability testing that ensures websites and other digital content can be used by people of all abilities. This includes making sure your site works seamlessly with assistive technologies, such as screen readers, voice recognition software, or alternative input devices such as sip-and-puff systems.

For example, a user relying on a screen reader needs clear, descriptive labels on buttons and images to understand and navigate your site effectively. If those labels are missing or unclear, they can’t complete basic tasks like filling out a form or purchasing. 

Beyond improving the user experience, web accessibility testing has become a legal imperative. In recent years, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has repeatedly stated that online spaces are considered public places and must be accessible to individuals with disabilities. This also means they must comply with the accessibility requirements in the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act. Because of this, organizations across all sectors must prioritize digital experiences — not just to avoid legal penalties, but to ensure their services provide equal access for everyone.

A stylized webpage with a magnifying glass positioned over an accessibility icon.

What Accessibility Testing Looks For

As mentioned above, accessibility testing focuses on identifying specific issues that prevent people with disabilities from using your website smoothly, specifically against the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). These issues range from technical barriers to content challenges, including:

• Missing or unclear alternative text (alt text) for non-text content, which leaves screen reader users guessing what a visual element (such as images, charts, graphs, etc.) means.

• Poor keyboard navigation, where users can’t move through the site using only a keyboard or alternative input device.

• Inadequate color contrast, making text hard to read for people with visual impairments, including low vision or color blindness.

• Improper heading structure or missing labels, which can confuse assistive technologies and disrupt navigation.

• Multimedia without captions or transcripts, excluding users who are deaf or hard of hearing. 

• Form fields lacking clear instructions or error identification can complicate form completion for many users.

By systematically searching for and fixing these issues, you not only improve the experience for your users but also move your content closer to meeting legal requirements like those mentioned above.

Put simply, accessibility testing becomes the frontline defense against accessibility issues that could exclude users or lead to compliance violations — helping you build websites that work better for everyone.

Stylized web browser with green check marks next to resolved issues and the AudioEye icon above the page

How Does Accessibility Testing Work? 

Testing your website and digital content against the latest WCAG guidelines — currently WCAG 2.1 — is essential to delivering an accessible experience for every user and staying compliant with laws like the ADA. 

For example, ensuring your site meets WCAG’s minimum color contrast standards can make text easier to read for people with color blindness or low vision, directly improving usability and reducing barriers. 

As part of the accessibility evaluation process, accessibility vendors will test content using various accessibility tools, such as screen readers (including JAWS, NVDA, and VoiceOver) and keyboard-only navigation to ensure optimum functionality. 

Most accessibility testing is conducted across browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari) and devices (desktops, tablets, smartphones, mobile aps) to ensure consistent user experiences. Some accessibility partners also offer audits of mobile apps on platforms like iOS and Android, recognizing that accessibility extends beyond the web.

What’s the Difference Between Manual and Automated Testing?

When it comes to accessibility testing, organizations often lean on automated tools or manual audits to evaluate their websites and digital content. 

Here’s what many organizations don’t realize: neither approach is enough on its own. To build an accessible, compliant, and user-friendly experience, you need both — working together. 

Automated Accessibility Testing

Automated accessibility testing tools automatically scan your digital content for common accessibility issues, making them a fast, efficient tool for getting started with accessibility. They can flag issues such as:

• Missing or empty alt text on images

• Low color contrast ratio

• Improper heading order

• Missing form labels

• ARIA attribute misuse

These tools are a great starting point and can help you catch “low-hanging fruit” quickly, but automated tools can’t catch everything. Most tools can only identify common issues, meaning a significant number of barriers can go undetected, putting your organization at risk for non-compliance.

For example, an automated tool might confirm that a button has a label — but it can’t tell you if that label is meaningful or descriptive to a real user. And it won’t know if the visual design confuses someone with cognitive disabilities.

Manual Accessibility Testing

Manual testing fills in the gaps left by test automation. It involves human testers evaluating your site using assistive technologies, screen readers, screen magnifiers, and keyboard-only navigation to ensure compatibility. This approach helps catch more complex issues that automated tools might miss, including:

• Ambiguous or redundant link text

• Inaccessible custom widgets and modals

• Unintuitive keyboard flows

• Confusing form instructions

• Poor focus management

While manual audits can offer deeper insight, they are time-consuming and resource-intensive, especially if they are done line-by-line across every page of your site. Unless you’re working with a trained accessibility expert or someone with lived experience using assistive technology, it’s easy to miss context-driven problems that affect real users. 

Why You Need Both

The most effective accessibility strategy combines both — relying on automation for speed and scale and manual testing for accuracy and depth. Automation helps catch routine issues early in development. Manual testing ensures that the end experience actually works for users with disabilities — not just machines. 

A hybrid approach to accessibility testing provides a more complete picture of your digital content’s accessibility and helps you prioritize meaningful improvements supporting compliance and usability.

What Are the Biggest Challenges in Accessibility Testing?

Though there are numerous benefits to ongoing accessibility testing, there are challenges that can make it difficult to start or maintain a dedicated accessibility program. This includes a lack of internal resources or commitment, misconceptions about the importance or ROI of accessibility, and even the perception that toolbars, widgets, or automated testing alone are sufficient to deliver a fully accessible experience to every website visitor. 

The key to overcoming these challenges is to start small, stay consistent, and focus on progress over perfection. Building accessibility into your existing workflows — whether that’s through regular testing checkpoints, using automation to catch common issues early, or partnering with experts for more in-depth audits — can make accessibility more manageable and scalable over time.

A stylized web page, with an icon of a human on the left side and a magnifying glass with an accessibility symbol on the right side.

How to Create an Accessibility Testing Plan

If you want your accessibility efforts to stick — and scale — you’ll need more than a one-time audit or a reactive fix. A sustainable testing program requires structure, prioritization, and the right mix of tools and expertise.

Here’s how to create a robust, scalable testing process that works for your organization long term.

1. Create a Comprehensive Asset List

First, start by mapping out the full scope of your digital presence. This includes your web pages, mobile apps, customer portals, and any downloadable content such as PDFs, reports, or forms. Accessibility testing doesn’t stop at your homepage — anything a user can click, download, or interact with should be on your radar. 

2. Prioritize What Matters Most

Once you’ve identified your assets, it’s time to triage. Focus your efforts on the highest-impact areas first — like pages with the most traffic, transactional flows (checkout, login, forms), and content that carries legal or reputation risk. You can also weigh current accessibility performance: if an asset is already in poor shape or has triggered complaints, it should rise to the top of your list. 

3. Develop an Accessibility Policy and Statement

A formal accessibility policy outlines your organization’s long-term goals and standards for accessibility. This internal document helps align teams and secure buy-in. Your public-facing accessibility statement, meanwhile, communicates your commitment to users — including any known limitations and instructions for reporting accessibility issues. It’s not just good practice — it shows transparency and builds trust. 

4. Set a Regular Testing Cadence

Testing should be built into your ongoing workflows, not treated as a one-time event. Many organizations rely on automated scans to catch routine issues on a weekly or monthly basis, while scheduling manual audits for deeper insights. This hybrid approach helps you maintain momentum, catch new issues as they arise, and ensure real-world usability over time. 

5. Fix the Issues You Find

Testing is only half the equation — the real impact comes from acting on the results. Remediation might involve manual code fixes by developers, automated overlays, or a combination of the two. What’s most important is that you close the loop: each issue identified should be tracked, prioritized, and resolved based on severity and impact to users. 

How to Choose an Accessibility Testing Partner

Choosing the right accessibility partner is just as important as committing to accessibility in the first place. As you evaluate your organization’s needs, it’s important to consider the following:

• Sample Reports: Ask potential vendors to supply a sample report of accessibility test results, including issues identified, issues fixes, and any outstanding issues that still need to be corrected.

• Interpretability: Ensure that reports are easy to understand, with guidance on next steps on next steps and recommended fixes. These fixes should fit seamlessly into your development process. 

• Coverage: If you’re evaluating automated accessibility solutions, check to see how many WCAG criteria they test — and whether they supplement their automated solution with human experts who can check for additional (and more complex) accessibility issues. 

• Scalability: If you’re considering a manual-only accessibility solution, check to see how they can help you deliver accessible browsing experiences between audits and how they can help you fix issues identified in their report. 

A stylized webpage with a series of purple checkmarks, signaling accessibility errors that have been fixed

The Accessibility Testing Workflow that Actually Delivers

Digital accessibility issues aren’t always obvious — but their impact can be huge. For users, they create frustrating, sometimes impassable roadblocks. For businesses, they create risk, hurt engagement, and limit your audience reach. 

That’s why ongoing accessibility testing matters. It helps you catch issues early, fix them fast, and build digital experiences that work better for everyone. But not all testing methods are created equal — and relying on automation or manual testing alone can leave critical gaps in your site’s accessibility. 

That’s where AudioEye comes in. 

AudioEye takes a three-pronged approach to accessibility, combining powerful automation with human-assisted AI technology to help you detect and fix accessibility issues. Our Developer Tools also bring accessibility testing directly to your development workflows, enabling you to detect and fix accessibility issues before they impact your users. 

Ready to see how accessible your site is? Use our free Web Accessibility Checker for an in-depth look — and a clearer path forward. 

Want to see AudioEye in action? Schedule a demo now.