Practical checks anyone can do.
THE KEYBOARD TEST
Press Tab through the entire page. Can you reach and use everything?
Is the focused element visible?
Five minutes, and it finds a great deal.
THE ZOOM TEST
Enlarge to 200 per cent. Does it still work?
THE GREYSCALE TEST
View in greyscale. Is anything now indistinguishable?
THE CONTRAST CHECK
Run your main text and background colours through a contrast checker.
THE HEADINGS CHECK
A browser extension listing headings. Does the structure make sense?
THE IMAGES CHECK
Do images have alt text? Is it descriptive?
THE FORM CHECK
Does every field have a visible label? Do errors say what is wrong?
AUTOMATED TOOLS
Browser extensions and online checkers find many issues quickly.
They catch perhaps a third of problems. The manual checks above find more.
WHAT TO DO WITH THE RESULTS
Fix contrast, labels and keyboard access first. Those affect the most people.
