The website accessibility checklist: 44 checks you can do yourself
44 plain-English WCAG 2.2 AA checks for structure, keyboard, forms, color and media.
Do it yourself: websites
Free accessibility testing tools, and what they can't catch
Automated tools are fast, free and essential — and they can only test what a machine can measure. Use them to clear the obvious issues, then test the rest by hand.
Website tools
| Tool | Type | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| axe DevTools (Deque) | Browser extension | Reliable rule engine with very few false positives; the engine behind many other tools |
| WAVE (WebAIM) | Browser extension and online | Visual overlay of issues in place; great for content editors |
| Lighthouse | Built into Chrome DevTools | Quick accessibility score alongside performance and SEO |
| Accessibility Insights (Microsoft) | Browser extension | Guided manual “assessment” walkthroughs, including tab-stop visualization |
| Colour Contrast Analyser (TPGi) | Desktop app | Checking contrast of any pixel, including images and video |
| NVDA | Screen reader (Windows) | Real-world testing of what blind users hear |
| VoiceOver | Screen reader (Mac, iOS) | Testing Safari and mobile |
| axe-core / Pa11y | Open-source libraries | Adding checks to your build pipeline so regressions fail tests |
PDF and document tools
| Tool | Best for |
|---|---|
| PAC (PDF Accessibility Checker) | Free Windows tool from the PDF/UA Foundation; checks PDF/UA and the machine-testable Matterhorn Protocol conditions; screen-reader preview of structure |
| Adobe Acrobat Pro accessibility checker | Quick full check; tag tree, reading order and alt text editing tools |
| Microsoft Office Accessibility Checker | Built into Word, PowerPoint and Excel (Review → Check Accessibility); fix issues at the source |
What automated tools can’t tell you
Automated testing reliably detects only a portion of WCAG issues. These require a person:
- Whether alt text is accurate — a tool sees
alt="image"as a pass. - Whether reading and focus order make sense.
- Whether a custom widget actually works with a keyboard and screen reader.
- Whether error messages are helpful and announced.
- Whether captions are accurate and audio description is needed.
- Whether a PDF’s tags reflect its real structure — a PDF can pass the checker with every paragraph tagged as a heading.
- Whether content is understandable — link text, instructions, consistent navigation.
A 100 score is not compliance Lighthouse’s 100/100 accessibility score means none of its automated checks failed. It doesn’t mean your site conforms to WCAG — or that a blind person can use it.
A sensible testing stack
- Developers: axe-core in unit/integration tests, plus axe DevTools during development.
- Content editors: WAVE before publishing; Office Accessibility Checker before exporting PDFs.
- QA: keyboard pass and a screen reader pass on every release that changes a user journey.
- Annually: an independent expert audit.
Find out where you stand, in writing.
Send us a few URLs or sample PDFs. Within two business days you get a free, plain-English snapshot of your biggest accessibility risks and what it takes to fix them.