Check Accessibility
Accessibility Best Practices
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are organized under four main principles:
- Perceivable: Information and user interface components must be presentable to users in ways they can perceive.
- Operable: User interface components and navigation must be operable.
- Understandable: Information and the operation of user interface must be understandable.
- Robust: Content must be robust enough that it can be interpreted by a wide variety of user agents, including assistive technologies.
Each principle contains guidelines, and each guideline contains specific success criteria at levels A, AA, and AAA.
Images
- Always provide alternative text for images
- Use empty alt text (alt="") for decorative images
- Make sure complex images have detailed descriptions
- Avoid embedding text within images
Forms
- Label all form controls properly
- Group related form elements with fieldset
- Provide clear error messages
- Ensure form navigation works with keyboard
- Use autocomplete attributes when appropriate
Structure
- Use semantic HTML elements (nav, main, article, etc.)
- Maintain proper heading hierarchy (h1-h6)
- Use landmarks to define page regions
- Ensure skip navigation links are available
- Include proper document language attribute
Text & Colors
- Maintain sufficient color contrast (4.5:1 for normal text)
- Don't rely on color alone to convey information
- Ensure text can be resized up to 200% without loss of functionality
- Use relative units (em, rem) instead of fixed pixels
- Provide visual focus indicators for keyboard users
Media & Interaction
- Provide captions and transcripts for audio/video
- Ensure all functionality is keyboard accessible
- Avoid auto-playing media with sound
- Provide sufficient time for users to read and interact
- Include appropriate audio descriptions for videos
ARIA Usage
- Use ARIA attributes only when necessary
- Prefer native HTML elements when possible
- Test with screen readers to verify implementation
- Keep ARIA roles consistent with element behavior
- Ensure custom components are fully accessible
Frequently Asked Questions
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are a set of recommendations for making web content more accessible to people with disabilities. Compliance with these guidelines ensures that websites are perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust for all users, including those with visual, auditory, physical, or cognitive impairments.
Current WCAG versions include 2.0, 2.1, and 2.2, with different conformance levels (A, AA, AAA). Most organizations aim for WCAG 2.1 Level AA compliance as a minimum standard.
Due to security restrictions (CORS policies) implemented by browsers, our tool may not be able to directly access the HTML of some websites. This is a security measure to protect users.
We provide multiple CORS proxies to help bypass these restrictions, but even these might not work for all sites. In such cases, you can manually copy the HTML from the website (using View Page Source in your browser) and paste it into the HTML input tab.
If one proxy doesn't work, try another, or use the "Auto" option to attempt all available proxies.
No, this tool is meant to help identify common accessibility issues, but it is not a replacement for comprehensive manual testing. Automated testing can only catch about 30% of accessibility issues.
For full WCAG compliance, we recommend:
- Using this tool to identify basic issues
- Conducting manual testing with keyboard navigation
- Testing with assistive technologies like screen readers
- Getting feedback from users with disabilities
- Consulting with accessibility experts for complex sites
This tool checks for several common accessibility issues including:
- Missing alternative text for images
- Form controls without proper labels
- Empty links and buttons without accessible names
- Missing document language
- Improper heading hierarchy
- Invalid or missing ARIA attributes
- Inaccessible tables
- Potential color contrast issues
- Missing page titles
- Semantic HTML structure problems
However, many aspects of accessibility require human judgment and cannot be automatically tested.