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WCAG Compliance Audits and Accessibility Testing Tools

Achieve WCAG compliance for your web apps

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are the global standard in digital accessibility guidelines. It enables organizations to measure the accessibility of content, websites, and apps against documented requirements for all people, including those with disabilities.

Deque experts can help you with WCAG audits, testing tools, training, and more. Request a free consultation today!

How to take action and conform to WCAG

  1. 1. Have a complete accessibility audit performed on your site and apps to determine your current level of accessibility.
  2. 2. Determine which parts of your site or app need to be prioritized based on usage and the severity of the accessibility barriers. Consider outsourcing remediation if time is of the essence.
  3. 3. Train your dev teams and empower them with WCAG tools to prevent new accessibility barriers from entering your products.

Deque really lays out what we need to do in the future and what the best options are on next steps. Having that clarity was a big piece for our leadership team. It’s been super helpful to drive the business case for accessibility

Elizabeth Barker Research Accessibility Manager, NWEA 

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Benefits of following the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)

WCAG isn’t just for your dev team to reference and comply with. If you are a content creator, authoring tool developer, web developer, accessibility tester, or test tool developer, the guidelines are for you, too.

Serving a wider audience–Accessible content will widen your available target audience opening new revenue opportunities.

Decreased legal risk–Organizations actively pursuing accessibility excellence are better positioned to address claims and avoid costly violations.

Increased search presence–Providing page titles, semantic heading structure, alternative text, and transcripts makes your content more discoverable by search engines.

Better overall user experience–Studies show that optimizations made in UI/UX for accessibility also benefit people without disabilities.

Where should my organization start with WCAG testing?

Start at the ideation phase and include expert accessibility reviews at each major stage:

  • Project Scope
    Understand your goals, success metrics, and deadlines.
  • Design
    Train designers to prototype and deliver mocks with accessibility in mind.
  • Development
    Train devs to catch glaring bugs in code before it goes into production.
  • QA
    Test using automated and manual scans against WCAG criteria.
  • Launch
    Ship your product with scheduled accessibility checkpoints built in.
  • Maintenance
    Conduct ongoing testing and updates to produce the best UX possible.

Accelerate your journey to compliance with a WCAG audit

Most accessibility projects begin and end with a complete accessibility audit. With WCAG audits from Deque, you get:

  • Findings you can trust
    Rely on our in-house expertise for comprehensive coverage, a proven methodology, zero false positives, and full transparency.
  • Results in days, not weeks
    Get the fastest turnaround times for expert insights and detailed reports. With decades of industry-leading experience, we’re able to deliver higher quality, faster.
  • Easy to act on priorities
    Make it easy for your devs to quickly start remediations. Understand priorities and get recommendations tailored to your environments and code.
Screenshot of axe Auditor platform.
Axe-DevTools-Browser-ExtensionFor-Web

Trusted WCAG testing tools process

Testing will look different for every team and organization, but this is a general process to follow:

  • Step 1: Define the scope.
    Determine how many pages will be to evaluate against WCAG level 2.0 AA at a minimum.
  • Step 2: Run an automated scan of the page.
    Manual testing is always required to reach full compliance, but using axe automated accessibility tools is a great way to get started.
  • Step 3: Conduct a manual testing audit.
    Work with your team’s accessibility lead, or connect with a trained accessibility expert.
  • Step 4: Test using a screen reader.
    Conduct usability testing with real users with disabilities to test their unique assistive technologies (AT).
  • Step 5: Document all findings
    Create a comprehensive accessibility report format.