An accessibility audit is a detailed review of your website to determine how usable it is for people with disabilities. This includes users with visual impairments, mobility issues, cognitive challenges, and more. It assesses your site against recognised standards such as WCAG 2.2 and evaluates real-world usability. A proper audit is essential for website accessibility and is now a legal requirement under the European Accessibility Act.
An audit does more than flag technical errors. It identifies barriers that prevent people from accessing content, services or completing essential tasks online. These audits are vital for ensuring inclusion, improving user experience, and meeting legal obligations.
Website accessibility is not optional. In the UK, it is covered under the Equality Act 2010, which mandates that services must be accessible to all. The European Accessibility Act strengthens these obligations, especially for businesses with a digital presence in the EU.
Failure to comply with accessibility regulations could lead to complaints, legal action, and reputational damage. More importantly, it excludes millions of users. Ensuring website accessibility is both a legal duty and a moral imperative.
WCAG 2.2 is the current global standard for web accessibility. It includes a set of guidelines designed to make digital content more accessible. These guidelines cover everything from colour contrast and keyboard navigation to error identification and target sizes.
It is structured around four principles: perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust. Meeting these principles ensures that your website works for the widest range of users — regardless of ability or device. A good audit checks your site against all relevant success criteria.
The European Accessibility Act (EAA) becomes enforceable on 28 June 2025. It requires all businesses providing digital services to EU consumers to ensure their websites and apps are accessible. This includes UK businesses with EU customers.
The EAA covers ecommerce platforms, banking, ticketing, online learning, and more. It is modelled on the Web Accessibility Directive but applies to the private sector. If your website is not accessible by the deadline, you may face legal penalties or lose customers who expect inclusive experiences.
A typical audit includes a mix of automated testing, manual inspection and real user testing. The process begins with scoping the pages and features to be reviewed. Then, automated scans highlight common issues such as missing labels or incorrect heading structure.
Next, manual checks are carried out by accessibility professionals who examine the site using assistive technologies like screen readers and keyboard navigation. This helps catch issues that machines miss. Finally, disabled testers engage with the site and provide feedback on actual usability barriers they encounter.
All findings are compiled into a detailed report that includes severity ratings, screenshots, suggested fixes and videos of real users interacting with your site. This gives you a comprehensive understanding of where things stand and what to do next.
Automated tools are useful for catching obvious accessibility issues, but they are not enough. They typically identify only 30 to 40 percent of WCAG 2.2 failures. Worse still, many businesses rely on overlays — tools that claim to fix accessibility issues automatically. These are not recognised by the European Accessibility Act as valid solutions.
Real accessibility requires expert auditing and involvement from users with disabilities. Overlay widgets may offer features like text resizing or colour contrast, but they do not fix the underlying problems. They can also interfere with screen readers and create a false sense of compliance.
If you want digital accessibility compliance, you need to invest in proper testing, clear reporting and strategic remediation. No overlay or automated scan alone will deliver what is needed.
We have worked with many organisations in both the public and private sectors, helping them achieve real digital inclusion. One example is Barclays, who engaged us to improve their digital banking experience. Through a full audit, we identified key issues affecting screen reader users and helped implement solutions that improved usability and compliance across their online services.
Another success story is Liz Earle, a high-profile e-commerce brand. After our audit, their website was transformed into a more inclusive experience, particularly for customers with visual impairments. By focusing on practical, actionable fixes, we helped the team enhance user satisfaction while reducing legal exposure.
In the education sector, City College Southampton partnered with us to review their digital learning environment. Our disabled user testers uncovered barriers not identified by internal checks. The changes they implemented led to a more accessible platform for their students and staff.
These examples highlight why real-world testing and lived experience are essential. Automated scans cannot replicate the value of feedback from people who rely on accessibility every day. Each of these organisations began their journey with an audit and followed it with commitment to change.
Carrying out an audit brings multiple benefits for your organisation, your users and your brand. First and foremost, it helps ensure compliance with legal frameworks such as the Equality Act 2010, the European Accessibility Act and international WCAG 2.2 standards. This can significantly reduce your exposure to risk, complaints and litigation.
Beyond compliance, accessibility audits improve the overall user experience. Sites that are easier to navigate and understand are better for everyone, not just disabled users. Clear structure, better colour contrast and improved mobile responsiveness benefit all users and can lead to increased engagement, conversions and customer loyalty.
Search engines favour accessible websites, which means a professionally audited and improved site may enjoy better rankings and visibility. By investing in accessibility, you are also investing in SEO, usability and reputation. It sends a clear message that your organisation is committed to doing things properly and serving everyone fairly.
There is also a strong commercial case. With over 14 million disabled people in the UK and more than 100 million across Europe, accessibility opens the door to a massive, underserved market. Making your website inclusive is not just the right thing to do — it is smart business.
We follow a transparent, structured process for every audit we carry out. This ensures consistency, reliability and accountability in our work. Here is what you can expect:
1. Discovery and scoping: We begin by identifying the pages, user journeys and content types that will be included in the audit. This is tailored to your website's structure and audience needs.
2. Automated scan: We run industry-standard tools to get a high-level view of your site’s technical accessibility, flagging common issues with headings, ARIA usage, labels and more.
3. Manual review: Our experienced accessibility specialists then go through each page by hand, using a variety of assistive technologies. We test with screen readers (NVDA, VoiceOver), keyboard-only navigation, and screen magnifiers.
4. Real user testing: Our team includes disabled testers with lived experience. They identify barriers that automated and manual reviews often miss — such as confusing interactions, unclear instructions or inaccessible PDFs.
5. Reporting and review: We deliver a detailed report, highlighting issues by severity, providing screenshots and recommendations. We also include screen recordings from real users where appropriate.
6. Feedback and Q&A: You receive the report in a feedback session, where we walk you through everything, answer questions and support your planning.
At every step, we are focused on helping you move forward confidently. Our approach is collaborative, respectful and rooted in real-world accessibility needs.
Once the audit has been completed and the report delivered, your organisation enters a critical stage — acting on the findings. The audit is not the end of the journey. It is the beginning of making your digital presence genuinely inclusive.
Our team does not just hand over a list of problems. We support you in understanding the results and building a realistic, prioritised roadmap for improvement. Issues are grouped by severity and user impact, so your development team knows exactly where to start.
You will also have access to our disabled user testing team, who can validate changes and provide feedback as improvements are rolled out. This ensures every change you make is grounded in lived experience and real usability, not just technical criteria.
Follow-up support, retesting and reporting are also available. Many of our clients choose to include retesting in their implementation timeline. This ensures progress is measurable and recognised — both internally and externally.
We can also help you update or create a legally compliant accessibility statement. This is essential under the European Accessibility Act and WCAG 2.2. A clear, honest accessibility statement with an action plan demonstrates commitment, even if you are not yet fully compliant.
Now that you understand what an audit involves and the benefits it brings, the next step is simple — take action. The European Accessibility Act enforcement begins 28 June 2025. Businesses that are unprepared risk financial penalties and reputational damage.
Our audits have already helped many leading organisations across the public and private sectors. We work quickly, efficiently and with empathy. Our team includes disabled testers, accessibility specialists and experienced support staff ready to help you get started.
If you are unsure about the current state of your website, we can run a quick scan and provide an honest view. No pressure, no obligation — just the facts and a clear way forward.
Book a free consultation today and find out how we can help protect your brand, improve user experience and meet your legal obligations.
