Prioritizing accessibility fixes

Often scanning a large site finds a large number of issues. What’s the best way to fix these?

Fix template issues

Issues in page templates are often repeated on every page on a site, so fixing these has the maximum benefit. Template issues often affect site navigation, so even fixing minor issues has positive impact for users trying to navigate around the site.

It’s not uncommon for template issues to account for 50% of the issues by volume, so fixing a single page template can resolve half of the issues found.

Fix key interactions

Some interactions are often essential to using a site. On an airline website, the ‘Book Flight’ button is the single most important interaction. If the button doesn’t have an accessible label it might be read as ‘Button, blank’ or ‘Image one thousand and thirty four’ in a screen reader. That prevents screen reader users booking flights, so it’s essential to fix this.

Fix the busiest pages

Use your analytics package to identify your top pages by traffic volume. On some sites a small number of pages account for 80% of site traffic so fixing these pages fixes issues for most site visitors. This usually includes the home page.

Fix your contact page

A contact page that requires people to solve CATCHPAs is impossible to use for some. If users can’t contact you when they have an accessibility issue, they may resort to litigation.

Fixing remaining issues

After addressing the issues above you need a plan to fix the remaining issues - it’s best to prioritize remaining issues by:

• WCAG priority (A, AA or AAA)
• Ease of fixing

Fix the easiest level A issues first, because these have the highest user impact. Then move onto easy to fix AA issues.