How to Test a Website for Accessibility: Quick Test Guide

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How to Test a Website for Accessibility: Quick Test Guide

Posted December 02, 2024

AudioEye

Posted December 02, 2024

Stylized web browser with a magnifying glass over the accessibility icon; a rocket ship blasting off is in the lower left-hand corner.
Stylized web browser with a magnifying glass over the accessibility icon; a rocket ship blasting off is in the lower left-hand corner.

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Ensuring your website is accessible to all users is crucial — both from a user and legal perspective. But how do you test your website for accessibility? Below, we’ll discuss how to measure accessibility using automated tools and manual testing methods.

An accessible website isn’t just good practice — it’s essential for meeting legal requirements and minimizing legal risks, particularly lawsuits. But knowing where to start or exactly what standards you have to meet can feel overwhelming, especially if you’re new to web accessibility. 

The good news? Testing for website accessibility isn’t as difficult as you might think — there are actually a few tests you can do on your own to get a sense of how accessible your existing content is with standards like the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Section 508, or the European Accessibility Act (EAA). However, while self-tests are a great starting point, achieving actual accessibility compliance and reducing legal risks requires expert help. 


Below, we’ll cover some quick ways to test your site’s accessibility, review some helpful accessibility testing tools, and explore why a hybrid approach to accessibility testing is the best way to ensure your digital content meets accessibility standards and provides a good user experience.

How to Manually Test for Accessibility

If you’re just getting started with website accessibility, manually reviewing your site for common accessibility issues can help you get an idea of how accessible your existing content is. We’ve included some of these tests below.

Create a Testing Plan

Before getting too deep into the testing process, you’ll want to create a plan for your accessibility audit. 

If your website is already live, look at which pages are getting the most traffic. This includes your homepage and where a potential conversion could happen (like your checkout page or product pages). Following this order will ensure your most used pages are accessible while you focus on lower-traffic pages.

If your content is not yet live, consider moving through your homepage to your additional pages in whatever order is best for you and your team.

Test Keyboard Navigation

All your digital content should be navigable via keyboard commands and shortcuts alone. To test for keyboard accessibility, choose one of your pages and use only the tab key and arrow keys to move through every page and interact with every feature. As you’re moving through pages, ask yourself the following questions:

  • Can you see the focus indicator at all times? 
  • Can you navigate to different pages using keyboard shortcuts?
  • Can you skip to different sections or elements on the page without using the navigation menu?
  • Can you close a pop-up? 
  • Can you interact with special web elements like maps, audio, and video players?
  • Can you easily fill out and submit an online form?
  • Are you able to complete a purchase using only keyboard commands?

If you answered ‘no’ to any of the questions above, consider making adjustments to make your operating system more keyboard-friendly.

Test Screen Reader Compatibility

Individuals with visual impairments or physical disabilities may use assistive technologies, such as screen readers, to navigate digital content. You can test how screen reader-friendly your content is by installing free screen reader software such as NVDA, JAWS, and VoiceOver. 

To test a page with a screen reader, install or turn on the software on your web browser and then move through the page from top to bottom. Pay attention to what the screen reader is saying as you navigate around and how easy it is to interact with different features. Listen for anything that may be confusing or incorrect, like links that don’t correctly describe their purpose, or if anything disrupts navigation, such as automatically playing media or slider bars. You can then use those insights to make improvements to the web design.

Ensure Links are Descriptive

Look at all the links on your website. Ask yourself: If I didn’t create the page, would I know what would happen if I clicked on the link? If the answer is no, consider adjusting the link text. You want links to give a clear idea of what happens when a user clicks them to minimize confusion, especially for screen readers. 

For example, rather than saying ‘click here,’ consider ‘click here to learn more about our products.’ This helps readers understand that by clicking on the link, they’ll be taken to another page where they can learn more about your products. 

Don’t forget to look at your call-to-action buttons as well.

Check for Zoom Accessibility

Users with low vision may zoom into your content to read your text better. Make sure content isn’t lost or goes off-screen when users zoom in by up to 400%. Everything should still be clearly visible and usable, even when zoomed in this much.

Ensure Non-Text Content has Alt Text

Look at the images and other non-text content on your site (e.g., graphs, tables, videos, etc.). Do they have alt text? Alt text is a written description of the image (or other non-text content) that can be read aloud by assistive technologies, allowing screen reader users to interact with this type of content.

Check for Captions

Check your video and audio content for captions or transcripts. These features ensure those with auditory disabilities, such as deafness or hearing difficulties, can interact with multimedia content.

Test Color Contrast Ratios

Color contrast ratios have a huge impact on the usability and functionality of content for those with low vision or who are colorblind. You’ll want to ensure all your digital content has a minimum color contrast ratio of 4.5:1 for normal text and 7:1 for large text. Using a color contrast checker (like this one from AudioEye) can help you strike that perfect balance.

How to do Automated Accessibility Testing

Manually testing your website for the accessibility features above can help you get started on the path to accessibility. However, the process can be time-consuming and resource-intensive — especially if you have many web pages to test. That’s where automated accessibility evaluation tools can help.

Automated accessibility testing quickly and efficiently checks your website for common accessibility problems or issues, like missing alt text, improper heading structures, and insufficient color contrast. This can significantly speed up your path to accessibility and compliance.

For example, AudioEye’s free web accessibility scan audits your content for 30 WCAG 2.1 success criteria and determines if there are any violations (more than any other tool on the market). Simply enter the URL of your digital content into the scanner, and our software will highlight where common digital accessibility issues exist in your content. 

While automated testing is a great first step in determining how accessible your current content is, it can’t catch everything. For example, accessibility checkers can’t tell you how user-friendly your keyboard navigation is, how descriptive alt text is, or where you can improve accessibility in your web development processes. Pairing automated scans with expert testing and user testing is essential for true accessibility.

Ready to See Where Your Website Stands on Accessibility?

Testing your website for accessibility doesn’t have to be overwhelming. The tests mentioned above are quick ways you can test your site for accessibility — and dozens of free tools are available to help streamline your path to creating more accessible content and meeting accessibility requirements. 

With AudioEye, you can identify accessibility issues and take actionable steps to fix them, saving time and fast-tracking your path to compliance with the ADA, EAA, and other accessibility laws. AudioEye also takes a hybrid approach to accessibility, meaning you’ll enjoy the speed and efficiency of automatic testing and the knowledge that comes with expert testers. The result is an accessible, usable website that is compliant with the latest accessibility laws and conformance standards. 


Ready to get started? Enter the URL of your content in the scanner below. Or schedule a demo to see AudioEye in action.

Ready to see AudioEye in action?

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Ready to test your website for accessibility?

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