We've all heard the familiar refrain: businesses must make their websites accessible in accordance with WCAG 2.1 Level AA guidelines.
Great — but what does that actually mean in practice? And is your website already compliant?
WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines), published by the international W3C organization, is the globally recognized standard designed to ensure websites are accessible to people with disabilities.
Level AA represents the middle tier of compliance. The guidelines define three conformance levels (A, AA, and AAA), and AA is the one required by most accessibility laws worldwide — including the ADA, Section 508, and the European Accessibility Act.
This breaks down into several key areas you can use to assess your own site's accessibility. But first — an important caveat we want to address right at the top of this article.
Can You Verify Your Website's AA Compliance On Your Own?
You're welcome to treat what follows as general guidance. In the interest of full transparency, we are a web accessibility company and this is a service we offer. That said, in our professional experience, only a trained accessibility specialist — equipped with the right professional tools — can thoroughly audit a site and accurately assess its true level of compliance.
A quick search online will turn up a range of automated accessibility testing tools, such as WAVE, Axe, and many others. All you need to do is enter your domain and wait for the results.
After reading through this guide with all its accessibility checkpoints — combined with those tools for additional indicators — you'll be able to build a fairly reliable picture of where your site stands.
It's an excellent preliminary audit, and it can motivate you to take real steps toward a more accessible, inclusive website starting today.
That said, it's important to emphasize that only a professional eye can truly evaluate every aspect of accessibility and recommend the right fix — whether that's an automated solution, a manual adjustment, a recommendation to the site owner, or a code-level change by a developer.
Key Areas to Check in a Self-Conducted Website Accessibility Audit
The following recommendations align with the requirements of AA-level web accessibility standards. Some can be implemented entirely on your own; others will require a developer.
Text Readability on Your Website
Add alternative text (Alt Text) for every non-text element — such as images, charts, and graphics. Alt text should describe the visual content for users with visual impairments. You can add these tags yourself on most website platforms, including WordPress, Wix, and others.
Beyond alt tags, you must also transcribe and add captions to any video content on your site. Every audio or video element must have a text transcript and synchronized captions.
Our system automatically generates descriptions for images, but images that contain embedded text — such as banners and promotional graphics — are harder to handle automatically (the system reads them as visual objects and struggles to extract text within them). These require manually entered alternative descriptions.
We can share that we're currently developing new capabilities for our User A platform that will allow automatic accessibility handling of banners and ads — something that currently requires manual input.
Also ensure sufficient color contrast between text and background to guarantee readability for users with low vision. (An accessibility plugin can help here, but your site should be readable at a baseline level as well.)
Functional Accessibility Features
The aspects we'll cover here can be addressed through an accessibility plugin and/or through code-level changes by a developer.
Every function on your website must be operable via keyboard alone, without requiring a mouse. This matters because blind users cannot navigate using a cursor — they rely entirely on keyboard navigation.
Your site must also include clear link identification: links must be visually distinguishable not just by color, but also through underlining or another visual indicator.
Additionally, avoid any flashing or strobing content. Rapidly blinking elements can trigger seizures in users with photosensitive epilepsy and create difficulties for users with attention-related conditions — and frankly, they're not recommended for anyone.
Accessible External Files
It's not just your website that needs to be accessible — everything uploaded to it or offered through it must be accessible too.
Text files and documents uploaded to your site — such as PDFs, Word files, and PowerPoint presentations — require their own separate accessibility treatment. Making your website accessible does not automatically make these external files accessible.
Similarly, verify that any third-party services integrated into your site — such as payment processors, contact forms, booking systems, and delivery platforms — are delivered in an accessible format. Using third-party services does not exempt you from accessibility obligations.
We recommend reaching out to those vendors directly to confirm their accessibility compliance (and as part of our accessibility service, we review this aspect as well).
At the Code Level
This isn't a DIY task, but a developer can handle it: ensure compatibility with assistive technologies. In other words, your content must be built to work seamlessly with tools like screen readers.
One thing you can almost always do yourself is maintain a proper heading hierarchy using H1, H2, H3, and so on. Correctly structured headings create a clear, logical content structure that screen readers and users alike can navigate easily.
"After All This, Can My Website Really Be Fully Accessible?"
There's always a strong chance your website can meet the vast majority of accessibility requirements and dramatically reduce your exposure to legal complaints or lawsuits.
However, that doesn't eliminate the need for a professional accessibility consultant to review everything thoroughly.
A web accessibility expert performs tasks that an untrained person may struggle with or simply be unaware of, given the sheer volume of guidelines, criteria, and sub-criteria involved.
A deep-dive audit of every site component uncovers hidden accessibility issues. This comprehensive review includes both a genuine hands-on manual assessment — where the accessibility expert personally navigates and interacts with the site — and testing using advanced accessibility tools that most individuals simply don't have access to.
A web accessibility expert will run tests with assistive technologies like screen readers, fix code-level issues and compatibility problems across operating systems (including mobile), and ensure every element on your site meets AA-level accessibility standards.
The Added Value of a Web Accessibility Expert Goes Beyond the Audit
A fully accessible website isn't a one-and-done project. Changes in legislation, software updates, and even cosmetic redesigns can suddenly expose your site to accessibility complaints from users.
That's where the added value of our dedicated technical support at USER A comes in.
We assign you a dedicated web accessibility expert who stays by your side throughout the year — available for any question, implementing updates as regulations evolve, and reviewing every design and functionality change on your site.
We provide ongoing guidance and consulting to our clients, and we treat the long-term accessibility of your website as a core value, not an afterthought.
We hope this guide has been genuinely useful, and we're always available for any further questions or consultations you may need.