Is Your Web Site Accessible?

Sometimes we would like to know quickly if a web page or a web site is accessible. Accurately determining accessibility is not a quick process, but there are some questions we can ask to figure out in a matter of minutes if our site is mostly accessible.

In the following you can read a list of questions which will help you determine if your site contains any of the most frequent errors. What you should be looking for is if you can answer with "yes" to any of the questions. If the answer is "no", most likely you will need to make your site more accessible.

The questions are designed so that they are easy to answer without having too much technical knowledge about web design, web development or accessibility.

The questions mostly follow the structure of WCAG 2.0, but they also ensure that they address the most frequent Section 508 non-compliance issues as well.

Questions to determine if your site is accessible

• Are all informative visual elements described with alternative text? (images, controls, CAPTCHA, etc.) Decorative images do not have to be described
• Do all sounds have an equivalent transcription, caption or sign language interpretation?
• Are all videos transcribed or provide audio description
• If you turn off style sheets does the page still make sense?
• Are labels attached to form fields programmatically and visually
• Is the content understandable without any senses? (vision, hearing)
• Is the content understandable without being able to distinguish colors? (viewing content on black and white)
• Can you stop all automatically started or user requested audio, including background sounds at any time
• Does the site provide a good contrast ratio?
• Can you resize text with the browser?
• Can you operate all functionalities by using the keyboard only?
• Do all functional items receive focus?
• Does change occur only at user request?
• If there are any time limits, can you extend it for user request?
• When sessions expire is previously entered data saved?
• Are flashing and blinking elements flash less than three times a second?
• Are different blocks of the pages distinguished?
• Can users skip repetitive blocks throughout the site?
• Can users find a particular place on the site in more than one way?
• Is the current location indicated throughout the site?
• Are page titles, link texts and headings descriptive?
• Are data table headers indicated?
• Is the language of the page defined?
• Are error messages obvious and understandable?
• Is help provided where functionality requires it?
• Is the site coded using valid and error-free code?

Warning

This set of questions does not ensure that your site is accessible. Rather, it helps you to determine if you need to get more accessibility work done on your site.