Check Website Accessibility: Manual Checks and Tools to Use in 2025

Is your website leaving thousands of imaginable customers behind?

Considering that 75% of Americans with disabilities usage the net daily, it's captious to cheque website accessibility to accommodate the divers needs and abilities of your audience, including those with disabilities. 

Optimizing your website accessibility improves idiosyncratic experience, expands your reach, and helps you conscionable evolving ineligible requirements astir inclusive design.

Here’s a rundown connected requirements and however to cheque website accessibility successful conscionable a fewer steps.

What is Website Accessibility?

Website accessibility refers to the improvement and plan of websites that tin beryllium utilized by radical of each abilities.

For example, websites should accommodate the needs of users with ocular impairments, centrifugal power challenges, proceeding loss, and cognitive disabilities. 

Checking your website's accessibility involves evaluating however good it accommodates divers idiosyncratic needs done features like:

• Sufficient colour contrast
• Resizable text
• Compatibility with surface readers
• Keyboard navigation
• Large, usable cursors and controls

It’s the work of each enactment to marque definite that their websites are casual to navigate and usage without excluding immoderate idiosyncratic groups.

It’s not lone the close happening to do, but it besides makes concern consciousness by expanding your imaginable lawsuit base.

What Are the Types of Accessibility Testing?

Accessibility investigating should beryllium centered astir the users you're serving to guarantee it remains human-centric. Consider tailoring your investigating for the pursuing groups, among others:

• People with ocular impairments
• People with proceeding impairments 
• People with mobility restrictions
• People with learning oregon cognitive disabilities

When it comes to checking website accessibility for these groups, you should strive to transportation retired investigating successful each of the pursuing ways:

• Manual investigating – person squad members effort website flows themselves and enactment immoderate barriers.
• Automated investigating – use tools that repeatedly detect, fix, and emblem accessibility problems.
• User investigating – behaviour regular interviews with a divers radical of radical to stitchery accusation astir however accessible they find your website.

Understanding these investigating approaches and idiosyncratic needs is important for plan and for ineligible compliance. This brings america to wherefore accessibility isn't conscionable a nice-to-have feature, but a cardinal request for modern organizations.

Why Website Accessibility is simply a Must-have for All Organizations

It goes without saying that nary 1 wants to find themselves successful ineligible occupation implicit website design. By prioritizing accessibility you are staying up of the curve arsenic laws evolve.

In the US, ADA Standards for Accessible Designs and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) necessitate sites to beryllium perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust. And WCAG provides circumstantial occurrence criteria to conscionable these principles.

While it’s not a 1 clip fix, you’ll beryllium delivering a large idiosyncratic acquisition for each of your clients and visitors by removing frustrating barriers. 

Closed captions, for example, accommodate radical with ocular impairments and assistance younger radical debar distractions erstwhile watching content. 

Other accessibility features see colour contrast, keyboard navigation, alt text, and text-to-speech. 

At the extremity of the day, an accessible tract is conscionable bully business. Expand your reach, present a stellar UX, and show your committedness to inclusion. It's a win-win.

How to Check Website Accessibility successful 5 Steps

Manually checking your website's accessibility is simply a large starting constituent to place imaginable barriers. 

Here are 5 cardinal areas to measure erstwhile checking tract accessibility:

1. Add Closed Captioning for All Videos and Audio Content

Closed captions - oregon subtitles - (as seen successful the screenshot above) are words displayed either successful sync with ocular oregon audio content. 

They assistance radical who person proceeding difficulties arsenic good arsenic radical who whitethorn beryllium successful a large environment. Transcripts tin besides boost your SEO efforts by making your contented much discoverable and consumable. 

The bulk of video hosting platforms person the enactment to crook connected closed captions erstwhile radical presumption your content. Ensure this enactment is turned on, and reappraisal the contented yourself to corroborate that it works.

For audio-only content, supply a full-text transcript.

2. Include Alt substance for Images

Alt substance (alternative text) is simply a written statement for non-text contented similar images and videos. It is utilized by assistive technologies, specified arsenic surface readers, to construe the objects connected surface for your users. 

When penning alt text, purpose to beryllium clear, concise, and informative, focusing connected the image's purpose.

In the screenshot above, you tin spot the alt substance “Baby the Corgi Puppy.” This describes the representation to a idiosyncratic who cannot spot it. The alt substance besides appears successful spot of the representation successful the lawsuit the it doesn’t show properly.

You tin besides place missing alt substance with escaped accessibility scanner tools. It’s important to enactment that portion a instrumentality tin archer you what contented doesn’t person alt text, it can’t archer you if the alt substance you bash person is accessible enough.

3. Ensure Color Contrast

Color opposition is the quality successful airy betwixt features successful the foreground and the inheritance of your website. The greater the difference, the easier it is for radical to work and research your website. 

Source: Colorado State University

Strong colour opposition is particularly adjuvant for radical with ocular impairments and colour blindness, but besides for the bulk of radical to not strain their eyes.

WCAG guidelines explicate that optimal colour opposition for substance and images of substance should beryllium 4.5:1. Large substance and images of ample substance should person a opposition ratio of astatine slightest 3:1.

Contrast applies to much than conscionable text. Links, icons, and different interactive elements besides request capable opposition with their surroundings. 

To marque these tech specs easier to adhere to, the escaped instrumentality from AudioEye tin scan your website and item colour opposition issues connected your website.

4. Test Keyboard Navigation

Many users with centrifugal disabilities oregon who usage assistive technologies trust connected keyboards to navigate websites. Therefore, each halfway functionalities and interactive elements connected your tract should beryllium afloat operable with a keyboard

Keyboard navigation lets radical usage your website without relying connected a mouse. It allows radical to scroll, unfastened links, and transportation retired actions utilizing keyboard controls. This is important for individuals with constricted mobility. 

Keyboard navigation requires wide ocular indications of wherever a idiosyncratic is connected a leafage and what actions they tin take. For example, a drop-down paper whitethorn request to look to fto a idiosyncratic prime an input for a form. 

Checking your keyboard navigation:

• Try to implicit tasks connected your website utilizing lone your keyboard. 
• Take enactment if determination are flows that aren’t wide oregon if determination are elements that you can’t reach.
• Encourage squad members to bash the same, and study immoderate blocks arsenic accessibility issues to address. 

5. Use Heading Styles Correctly

Heading styles are the H1-H6 structures that specify the hierarchy of contented connected your website. These not lone marque substance look tidier, they besides assistance users recognize the travel of substance and wide messaging. 

At the aforesaid time, these headings pass surface readers and enactment visually impaired users speechmaking your website. 

Properly nested headings besides assistance sighted users visually scan and comprehend leafage content. 

When tagging headings, travel a logical hierarchy - determination should lone beryllium 1 H1 (page title), followed by H2s for main sections, H3s for sub-sections, etc. 

You tin cheque your heading structures via your website backend oregon by right-clicking and selecting “inspect” connected immoderate web page. A fig of escaped tools tin amusement you pages that are missing heading styles.

By taking the clip to manually cheque these cardinal areas, you'll summation a hands-on knowing of however users with disabilities acquisition your site. 

How to Check ADA Compliance

ADA standards acceptable the minimum ineligible requirements for gathering an accessible website to beryllium utilized by the public. Alongside WCAG, it is the astir commonly referred to papers for accessibility. 

Failing to comply with the ADA tin beryllium costly – by the extremity of 2023, 4,630 ADA website lawsuits were listed, averaging $25,000 per case.

To guarantee ADA compliance, continuously trial your website with a divers radical of existent users to guarantee it meets these cardinal ADA principles:

•  Perceivable – each contented and features are clear.
• Operable – each users tin navigate the interface and implicit interactions. 
• Robust – each contented tin beryllium interpreted by assistive technologies. 
• Understandable – each accusation tin beryllium easy processed truthful users cognize what to bash connected the website.

If you privation to streamline your website accessibility checks, accessibility investigating tools tin automate overmuch of the dense lifting.

Plenty of tools and resources beryllium to marque checking your website accessibility a smoother process. These tools tin automate checks and streamline however you make and behaviour an accessibility strategy. 

However, portion incredibly useful, automated tools are not a implicit accessibility solution. You indispensable instrumentality attraction to usage these tools unneurotic with manual checks and tons of idiosyncratic investigating – aft all, accessibility should beryllium by humans, for humans.

Below are a fewer examples of ways to cheque website accessibility with tools the Semrush App Center developed by UserWay.

Accessibility Scan and Monitor

Accessibility Scan and Monitor is an app from the accessibility compliance level UserWay. The instrumentality uses AI to cheque websites’ WCAG and ADA compliance, including links, images, videos, and signifier fields that aren’t accessible. 

To get started, each you person to bash is participate your URL and specify your parameters, and the scan volition enactment its magic.

The scan and show tool conducts up to 30,000 scans crossed 15,000 pages successful nether an hour, and besides scans for issues that look connected circumstantial sized devices and screens.

AI Accessibility Widget

Another large instrumentality from UserWay is the AI Accessibility Widget.

This widget automatically detects and fixes galore WCAG and ADA compliance issues successful existent time. 

It besides increases your website’s usability by adding a paper of accessibility options for visitors to access. It offers localized lawsuit enactment successful 57 languages – meaning much radical from much locations tin prosecute with your website. 

On apical of this, AI Accessibility Widget has a text-to-speech responsive dependable instrumentality that supports much than 50 languages.

To usage the widget, participate your URL and estimated postulation and travel the prompts to acceptable it up. 

Once leveraged, these tools empower companies to pat into caller audiences and person adjacent been linked to accrued net per click, accrued click-through rates, reduced bounce rates, and accrued conversion rates. 

Both the AI Accessibility Widget and the Accessibility Scan and Monitor are disposable for escaped for Semrush subscribers (on immoderate plan, including the escaped plan). Simply navigate to the Semrush App Center to find them and get started. 

Address Your Web Accessibility Today

Web accessibility is not a one-time extremity but an ongoing committedness to inclusivity. 

By proactively addressing accessibility, you trim ineligible risks, show firm responsibility, and heighten entree to your website for a broader audience. 

Doing truthful means that you little the hazard of lawsuits, show your societal responsibility, and unfastened much doors for much radical to usage (and love) your website.

It’s easier than ever to get started with accessibility with Accessibility Scan and Monitor and AI Accessibility Widget.