The following page serves as a checklist for performing self-evaluations. This is a "one-size-fits-most" approach towards testing. No single checklist can accurately reflect all use cases and all levels of technical and accessibility knowledge, so utilize the sections that are applicable to your content and role. This checklist uses web-based terms (page, site, etc.) but most of it applies to documents and other digital platforms.
It assumes:
- You are testing a single page or document at a time.
- You have familiarized yourself with the accessibility guidelines section of this website. This checklist does not describe all testing techniques in detail; refer to that section as needed.
- You have an automated testing tool and a color contrast analyzer tool readily available to you.
If you are just getting started, and want a higher-level overview of the main concepts presented on this page, see the Basic Accessibility Testing resource.
The checklist is ordered in approximate order of ubiquity; the items at the top will apply to all types of content, and the items nearer the bottom will apply to specific circumstances.
Note: This walkthrough does not include testing with a screen reader. Using a screen reader is not necessary for self-evaluations.
Content
- The text font, kerning, and line spacing is easy to read.
- The page has a unique page title.
- Any non-English text is wrapped in language tags specifying its language.
- The page text minimizes the use of jargon when possible, and any acronyms are spelled out the first time they are encountered on each page.
- There are no visual-based references to other content on the page (e.g. as seen in the red text...)
Keyboard Navigation
- All functionality on the page can be accessed solely with the keyboard - tab, shift-tab, enter, space, escape, and arrow keys.
- This includes forms, dropdown menus, popups, multimedia controls, and other interactive content.
- The first tab on the page is a jump link that allows the user to bypass the site header and navigation.
- There are no keyboard traps.
- When tabbing through the page, the reading order is predictable and logical.
- Every selectable item on the page receives a consistent visual focus indicator.
- When closing a dialog box or popup, keyboard focus returns to where it was before the box was opened.
Zoom
- A user can zoom in up to 200% without loss of functionality.
Color
- All text has sufficient color contrast against the background.
- 4.5:1 for standard-sized text
- 3:1 for large-sized text
- Automated testing tools can verify this against solid colored backgrounds.
- Manually review the colors of text against pattern, image, or video backgrounds, and compare against the lowest-contrasting areas of these backgrounds.
- Color is not the sole indicator of functionality.
- Ex. Links are both blue and underlined, not just blue.
- Ex. On a line graph with two data series, one is solid, one is dashed.
Headings
- There is exactly 1 Heading 1 on the page.
- Headings follow a hierarchy that accurately reflects the content of the page, with subheadings being Heading 2, sub-subheadings being Heading 3, etc.
- Heading levels are not skipped.
- Headings are not used solely for stylistic purposes
Links / Buttons
- All links (including buttons) on the page are sufficiently descriptive that the user can tell where they go without knowing the surrounding context.
- Each link has unique link text, unless there are multiple links to the same destination.
- Links that open in a new window have an appropriate visual indicator.
- Links that link to hosted files like PDFs have an appropriate visual indicator.
Images
- All the images on the page have the "alt" attribute.
- Images that are purely decorative / aesthetic have an empty text string / are flagged as decorative.
- All other images have alt text values that accurately describe the contents of the image.
- Images do not have alt text starting with "Photo of...", "Image of...", etc.
- Complex images have sufficient text-based descriptions, either as always-visible captions, or have links to a separate page with a full description.
- Besides logos, there are no images with text as part of the image itself.
- If this is unavoidable, the text in the image is included verbatim in the alt text.
Lists
- Lists are formatted using the defined List elements.
- Lists are not "faked" using hyphens, etc.
Videos
- All the videos on the page have captions.
- The captions have been manually reviewed and edited by a person for accuracy.
- The captions include important non-spoken sounds.
- The captions are appropriately synced to the audio.
- All the videos on the page have transcripts.
- The transcript contains the same text as the captions, plus any words that display on screen.
- There is a visible link to the transcript adjacent to the video.
- There is no text on the video that is not included in the associated transcripts.
- There are no flashing lights or rapid editing cuts in excess of 3Hz.
Forms
- All forms have a description before their form fields.
- All form fields have programmatically associated labels.
- All form fields clearly state any requirements for the input (e.g. password complexity)
- Any errors are clearly explained to the user, ideally before submitting the form.
- If the form involves any sensitive data, concludes a financial transaction, or is legally binding, there is a review screen for the user to confirm their choices before final submission.
- CAPTCHAs are avoided if possible. If CAPTCHA must be used, the more accessible reCAPTCHA v3 is implemented.
Tables
- Tables are not used for layout purposes.
- All tables have defined headers.
- There are no tables nested within other tables
- Tables do not have any merged cells.
- Empty spaces in tables have placeholder values like "N/A" versus empty cells.
Interactive Controls
- There are no autoplaying audio or video elements.
- There are no unnecessary animations or transitions on the page.
- Any kind of movement that occurs automatically can be paused, ex. adding a "Pause" button on an auto-advancing image slider or background video.