WCAG Audits & Testing

WCAG audit services for websites and web apps

A WCAG audit tells you exactly where your website or web application fails the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines — and what to fix first. We pair automated checks with expert manual testing on real assistive technology, map every finding to its specific success criterion, and deliver a prioritized report your team can ship against.

What you get with a WCAG audit

Every engagement combines automated coverage with the manual testing that finds what tools cannot, and ends with a report your developers can execute against.

Manual expert testing

We manually test your key user journeys — registration, search, forms, checkout, account — using keyboard navigation and screen readers. This is where most real barriers show up, even when a scanner comes back clean.

Assistive technology coverage

We validate behavior across common assistive technology and browser combinations — JAWS, NVDA, and VoiceOver among them — to catch the issues automated checks structurally cannot see.

Criteria-mapped findings

Every issue is tied to the exact WCAG success criterion it fails, with its location, steps to reproduce, and evidence. Your team sees what failed, where, and why.

Prioritized remediation plan

Findings arrive ranked by severity and user impact, so your developers fix in the order that reduces risk fastest instead of working through an unsorted dump.

A report teams can use

The report is written for implementation: plain descriptions, criteria mapping, and concrete next steps, not a list of problems that sits in a drawer.

Retest and verification

After your team ships the fixes, we retest and confirm what is resolved. You get an updated, defensible status that supports release notes, stakeholder review, and legal or procurement evidence.

Accessibility audit services built for real website compliance

If you need an audit your team will rely on, whether for remediation, legal evidence or procurement, you need more than a scanner export. Automated tools detect only the machine-checkable portion of accessibility issues. They cannot tell you that a keyboard user gets trapped in your date picker, that checkout cannot be completed with a screen reader, or that your error messages are never announced. Those are the failures that block real users, and they are the ones a legal claim or a procurement review turns on.

Depending on your product, your risk, and your stakeholders' requirements, we audit against WCAG 2.1 or WCAG 2.2 at Level A and AA — and we confirm the target with you before testing starts, so the results line up with the obligation you actually face.

WCAG 2.1 vs WCAG 2.2: choosing your audit target

The right target depends on your obligation and your stakeholders:

  • WCAG 2.1 is the widely referenced baseline — and the version the Department of Justice adopted for state and local government under ADA Title II.
  • WCAG 2.2 is the current W3C Recommendation. It adds nine success criteria beyond 2.1 and removes 4.1.1 Parsing as obsolete, with stronger requirements for focus appearance, dragging alternatives, and target size.

Which one is right depends on your obligation: a Title II entity plans against 2.1 AA; a product team building ahead of requirements typically audits against 2.2. Either way, the target is confirmed before testing, so you should not pay to prove conformance to a version nobody asked for. If you are not sure which version applies to you, bring it to a scoping call and we will settle the target against your actual obligation before anything is quoted.

What a full audit covers, and what scanners miss

A real audit goes far beyond surface-level page errors. We evaluate the templates and reusable components that repeat across your product, navigation patterns, complex forms, and the user flows that drive task completion, the places where semantic structure, keyboard interaction, and focus order actually break down.

Checkers and checklists stop at what a machine can see. That is the gap accessibility audit services close: keyboard usability, focus management, form behavior, dynamic components, and real screen reader experience only surface when a person drives the product the way your users do, and those are the failures compliance questions turn on.

What every finding in your report carries

  • What broke, in plain terms — for example, keyboard focus disappearing inside the mega-menu.
  • Where it happens — the page or component, with steps to reproduce it.
  • The criterion it fails — the specific WCAG success criterion, such as 2.4.7 Focus Visible.
  • Severity — how badly it blocks users and how likely it is to be flagged in a claim or review.
  • The fix — remediation direction a developer can act on without a translation layer.

Around the findings, the report states its coverage — which templates, components, and flows were tested — and closes with an executive summary a non-technical stakeholder can read. After your team remediates, the retest updates each finding's status, so the document ends its life as evidence of resolution, not a list of problems.

Where audit results get used

  • For legal risk: WCAG results are the technical evidence behind ADA website compliance — the defensible record courts and opposing counsel actually examine.
  • For procurement: the same testing feeds a VPAT/ACR, the conformance report buyers request in RFPs and vendor review.
  • For federal work: Section 508 is measured against WCAG 2.0 A/AA — a different version with its own rules, and we scope it correctly from the start.

Because every finding is criteria-mapped, one audit serves every downstream requirement — ADA compliance, a VPAT/ACR, or Section 508 — instead of paying for the same testing three times.

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Common questions about accessibility audits and testing

What is a WCAG audit?
A WCAG audit is a structured review of a website or web app against WCAG success criteria, usually at Level A and AA. It combines automated checks with manual testing to confirm real usability barriers — keyboard navigation, focus order, forms, interactive components, and screen reader behavior.
What is included in a WCAG audit report?
A solid audit report includes the identified issues, the impacted user experience, the mapped WCAG success criteria for each issue, evidence and notes, severity or priority, and clear remediation guidance. It is implementation-ready: it helps dev and QA reproduce and fix each issue, not just read a list of problems.
Is a WCAG audit the same as an ADA audit?
Not the same thing. The ADA is a civil rights law and does not give a detailed technical checklist for websites. WCAG is the technical standard used to measure accessibility. In practice, audit findings mapped to WCAG success criteria are used as evidence for ADA website compliance work because they give measurable, criteria-based results.
Do automated WCAG checkers catch everything?
No. Automated tools catch only a portion of issues. Many critical failures need manual validation — keyboard usability, focus management, form behavior, dynamic UI components, and real screen reader experience. Passing a scan is not proof of accessibility.
What is the difference between WCAG 2.1 and WCAG 2.2?
WCAG 2.2 extends 2.1 by adding nine new success criteria and removing 4.1.1 Parsing as obsolete. The W3C recommends 2.2 as the current conformance target. It strengthens requirements around focus visibility, dragging alternatives, target size, and redundant entry.
What is a WCAG check?
A WCAG check is a quick evaluation — usually automated — of a page against machine-detectable WCAG criteria. It is a useful first pass, but it is not an audit: it cannot assess keyboard flows, screen reader behavior, or complex components, which is where most serious barriers live.
What is WCAG used for?
WCAG is the primary technical reference for designing, building, and evaluating accessible digital experiences. It is also widely used in compliance programs and procurement requirements. For U.S. federal accessibility, Section 508 incorporates WCAG 2.0 Level A and AA by reference.
What are WCAG violations?
WCAG violations are failures against specific success criteria — for example, images without alternative text (1.1.1), functionality that requires a mouse (2.1.1), or form fields without labels (3.3.2). In an audit, each violation is documented with its criterion, location, and severity so it can be fixed and verified.
How do you prove WCAG compliance?
You prove WCAG conformance with evidence of testing: an audit report documenting coverage (pages, templates, flows), test methods (manual plus automated, with assistive technology), and pass or fail outcomes for each applicable criterion. There is no official WCAG or ADA certificate — the tested evidence is the proof.
What happens if a website does not follow WCAG?
WCAG itself imposes no penalties — it is a standard, not a law. The risk comes from the legal and contractual frameworks that reference it: ADA claims, Section 508 for federal work, procurement requirements, and enterprise vendor reviews. For state and local governments, the Title II rule sets WCAG 2.1 AA with fixed deadlines.
What is a WCAG checklist?
A WCAG checklist is a simplified list of criteria teams use for self-review. Useful for awareness — but a checklist marks boxes, it does not test behavior. An audit validates how your product actually works with a keyboard and a screen reader, which is what compliance questions ultimately turn on.

Who does this work

David LoPresti

Founder and CEO, ADA Compliance Professionals

David LoPresti founded ADA Compliance Professionals and works directly with software vendors, technology manufacturers, higher education institutions, and government contractors, translating WCAG requirements into practical implementation and verification processes. That is what this engagement delivers: manual and assistive-technology testing of your real user journeys, every finding tied to the success criterion it fails with steps to reproduce it, a remediation plan ranked by user impact, and a retest that records what your team resolved.

Get a clear picture of your website accessibility

Tell us what is driving the audit: a deadline, a complaint, a buyer requirement, or a release you want tested properly, and we will scope it with you on a call.

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