Accessibility audits, testing and practical improvements

Find the barriers that affect real tasks

An inaccessible interaction can prevent someone completing an application, managing their account or doing their job. The problem may be in the code, the design or the content: an unlabelled field, unclear instructions, insufficient contrast or a control that cannot be reached using a keyboard.

We help organisations assess those barriers and work through the improvements. An engagement can begin with an existing audit, a focused review of an important journey or a broader assessment of a website or application.

Agree what will be tested

We define the pages, journeys, components and accessibility criteria in scope, including the WCAG version and level where applicable. Automated checks are combined with manual evaluation such as keyboard navigation, zoom, focus behaviour and assistive technology checks.

As W3C’s evaluation guidance explains, automated tools alone cannot determine whether a site meets accessibility standards. We record the tested scope and methods so your team can understand both the findings and the limits of the assessment.

You receive issues that can be reproduced, an explanation of their user impact and recommendations for addressing them. Prioritisation considers the severity of the barrier, the importance of the journey and whether a shared component affects multiple pages.

Carry findings through to improvements

Our designers and engineers can help implement fixes or work alongside your team as it makes changes. Retesting checks the issues within the agreed scope. We can also help incorporate accessibility checks into design and development reviews so new work benefits from what has been learned.

For Bridges Self-Management, we tested the applications with people using assistive technologies and refined the interfaces in response. This formed part of a wider project combining research, mobile and web development, and offline access to health information.

What does the assessment cover?

The report records the version of the service tested, agreed criteria and any exclusions. Accessibility changes as content and software change, so we discuss what needs retesting and how ongoing checks will be handled. The findings give your team a basis for deciding and tracking the next improvements.

Do we need to redesign everything?

Often the starting point is a targeted improvement to components, content or a particular journey. Where wider changes are needed, our UX design and user research services can support them.