{"head":{"title":"What Is an Accessibility Audit? Definition | OceanLab","description":"An accessibility audit tests a site or app against WCAG to find barriers for disabled users. What it covers, how it is run, an example and mistakes.","canonical":"https://oceanlab.in/glossary/accessibility-audit"},"crumbs":[{"name":"Home","path":"/"},{"name":"Glossary","path":"/glossary"},{"name":"accessibility audit","path":"/glossary/accessibility-audit"}],"slug":"accessibility-audit","term":"Accessibility audit","aka":["a11y audit","WCAG audit"],"category":"Accessibility","short":"A structured review of a website or app against an accessibility standard, usually WCAG, to find what blocks disabled people from using it.","body":[["An audit combines automated scans with manual testing: keyboard only, screen readers, zoom, colour contrast and how forms, errors and dynamic content behave. W3C publishes a method for this, WCAG-EM, which sets the scope, samples key screens, tests them and reports the results."],["The output is a list of issues mapped to ",{"href":"/glossary/wcag-2-2","text":"WCAG"}," success criteria, each with where it occurs, how severe it is and how to fix it. It is often the input to a ",{"href":"/glossary/vpat","text":"VPAT"}," or an accessibility statement."]],"why":["Automated tools catch only part of the problems. An audit finds the barriers that stop real people, such as a checkout that cannot be finished with a keyboard. Buyers, public bodies and laws increasingly expect proof of accessibility, and the audit is that proof."],"example":["Before a public sector tender, a booking platform runs an audit on its ten most used flows. It finds unlabeled buttons, low contrast on error text and a date picker that traps keyboard focus. Fixes are prioritised by how many users each one blocks."],"inBuild":["We test accessibility during the build, not just at the end: semantic HTML, focus handling and contrast are part of the design system, and automated checks run in ",{"href":"/glossary/ci-cd","text":"CI"},". A manual audit before launch then confirms the flows that matter most."],"mistakes":[["Relying on an automated score alone."],["Testing the home page but not the logged-in flows where people do real tasks."],["Auditing once and never again, while new features add new issues."]],"related":[{"href":"/glossary/wcag-2-2","label":"WCAG 2.2","detail":"The version of the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines published as a Recommendation on 5 October 2023, with nine new success criteria."},{"href":"/glossary/vpat","label":"VPAT (Voluntary Product Accessibility Template)","detail":"A free template from the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI) for reporting how well a product meets accessibility standards."},{"href":"/glossary/penetration-test","label":"Penetration test (pen test)","detail":"An authorised, simulated attack on a system by security testers, to find weaknesses that a real attacker could use."},{"href":"/glossary/ci-cd","label":"CI/CD (continuous integration and delivery)","detail":"An automated pipeline that builds and tests every code change (CI) and then releases it to users in a repeatable way (CD)."},{"href":"/glossary/pwa","label":"PWA (progressive web app)","detail":"A web app built with standard web technology that can be installed on a device and work offline, giving an experience close to a native app."}],"tools":[],"links":[{"href":"/questions/what-is-wcag-2-2-aa","label":"What is WCAG 2.2 AA?","detail":"Question"}],"sources":[{"title":"W3C WAI, WCAG-EM: website accessibility conformance evaluation methodology","url":"https://www.w3.org/WAI/test-evaluate/conformance/wcag-em/","checkedAt":"2026-10-25"}],"legal":false,"updatedAt":"2026-10-25"}