I get routinely asked about web accessibility audits. I think it's great businesses are paying attention to accessibility, but I have a thing against audits.
Typically, accessibility audits happen after a website launches or is ready to launch. Either way, anything that comes up in the audit is more difficult and more expensive to fix than if it were properly addressed during development. Of course this means that everyone involved in product development needs to pay attention to accessibility and do the work.
You do it from the start, you do it right, it gets done and anything you missed is easier to fix later.
So then, why can't we just do it right from the start? I think many designers and developers are new to accessibility. They're learning as they go, which makes preventing problems upfront tricky. So the solution is training and education for everyone in the team.
This usually scares teams because not everyone has the budget for that. Especially since it's not a burning issue. It's much easier to postpone and think an accessibility audit will fix things.
This leads me to the other major issue I have with audits.
When teams do get audit reports, they're often overwhelmed. The audit is filled with technical jargon and long lists of issues. Teams that are just starting with accessibility and haven't done their work during development will feel like they got knocked on the head.
They start to run around like headless chickens and struggle to fix the issues. Then they pat themselves on the back and it's back to business as usual. Until the next audit. Rinse and repeat.
It's a game of whack-a-mole and they can't win.
Maybe the problem is we've trained clients to ask for audits like dogs ask for treats. As a product, they're easy to package, market and sell. And clients have learned to ask for and buy them. But they're not the best approach.
So are accessibility audits useless?
No. Here are some ways web accessibility audits can be useful:
- Audits provide a thorough evaluation of a website's accessibility, identifying issues that might be overlooked during development.
- Audits are often conducted by specialists who can offer in-depth knowledge and recommendations.
- Audits will show compliance with accessibility standards and regulations like WCAG or ADA.
- Audits produce formal reports that can be used for planning and budgeting.
- Audits help teams prioritise fixes based on severity and impact.
- Audits can serve as educational tools for teams to understand accessibility principles better.
- Audits provide a baseline for measuring future improvements.
Audits, good audits, are useful in hindsight. They can point you to the problems you've already created, but they won't help you prevent anything in the future.
The only way to do that is to figure out how to think about accessibility earlier. What would your web development process look like if you considered accessibility as fundamental as functionality, design, security or privacy?