What Is an Accessibility Audit? (Full Guide + Checklist)

2–5 min read

What Is an Accessibility Audit? (Full Guide + Checklist)

A simple, practical guide for businesses, designers, and developers.

The term accessibility audit can sound heavy and technical. In reality, it’s just a structured health check for your website or app.

An accessibility audit shows you:

  • What works well for people with disabilities
  • Where your site is hard to use
  • Which WCAG requirements you are failing
  • What to fix first to reduce risk and improve UX

In this guide, we explain what an accessibility audit is, how it connects to WCAG, EN 301 549 and the European Accessibility Act (EAA), and give you a practical checklist you can use with your team.

What Is an Accessibility Audit?

An accessibility audit is a structured review of your website, web app, or digital service to check how well it works for people with disabilities and how closely it follows established accessibility standards.

For web content in Europe, the key standards and laws are:

  • WCAG 2.1 – Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
  • EN 301 549 – European accessibility standard for ICT
  • EAA – The European Accessibility Act

A good accessibility audit shows which pages fail, which success criteria are affected, and what you can do to move towards WCAG 2.1 AA and future WCAG 2.2 alignment.

EAA, EN 301 549, and WCAG — The Clear Relationship

Here is the legally correct way to understand the connection:

  • The EAA is the EU law requiring many digital services to be accessible.
  • The EAA uses EN 301 549 as the technical standard.
  • The current EN 301 549 (v3.2.1) is based on WCAG 2.1 AA.

This means: to meet the EAA today, you should aim for WCAG 2.1 AA.

WCAG 2.2 is the newest version of the guidelines and is expected to be adopted into EN 301 549 in the future, so following WCAG 2.2 now is considered best practice.

Why Accessibility Audits Matter

1. Legal and compliance risk

The EAA makes accessibility a legal requirement. An audit shows where you fall short of WCAG 2.1 AA so you can improve before complaints or penalties appear.

2. Better user experience

Accessibility improvements help people with disabilities and make your entire interface cleaner and easier for everyone.

3. SEO benefits

Clear structure, alt text, headings and better usability help search engines understand and rank your content.

4. Clarity for your team

An audit turns “we need to be accessible” into a clear, prioritised list of issues.

Types of Accessibility Audits

1. Automated audit

Automated tools scan your site for common WCAG issues such as missing alt text, low contrast, and broken headings.

2. Manual audit

Experts test your site using keyboard-only navigation, screen readers, and real user flows.

3. Hybrid audit

A mix of automated scanning and manual testing is the most effective approach.

What an Accessibility Audit Checks

  • Alt text and non-text content
  • Heading and page structure
  • Color contrast
  • Keyboard navigation
  • Visible focus states
  • Form labels and error messages
  • ARIA roles and attributes
  • Responsive behaviour and zoom
  • Captions and transcripts for media

Accessibility Audit Checklist

1. Structure & navigation

  • One clear H1 per page
  • Logical heading order
  • Consistent navigation
  • Skip link available

2. Text & contrast

  • Readable font sizes
  • WCAG-compliant color contrast
  • No important text baked into images

3. Images & media

  • Meaningful images have alt text
  • Decorative images use empty alt or CSS
  • Videos have captions and transcripts
What Is an Accessibility Audit? (Full Guide + Checklist) | GetWCAG Blog