A good manual accessibility audit starts with the right scope, and, in most cases, the scoping should be complete and agreed on before contracts are signed.
It is not possible, efficient, or cost-effective to manually audit every page of a website or application; therefore, once the target of the audit is identified, a careful representative sample of screens is chosen. The sample considers the critical user flows and the tools, techniques, and content types used on the website or application.
Effective Scoping follows the first 3 steps of the WCAG-EM.
- Define the scope of the evaluation – defining what is included in the evaluation; the goal of the evaluation; and the WCAG conformance level (A, AA, AAA).
- Explore the website – identifying key web pages; key functionality; types of web content, designs, functionality, etc.; required web technologies.
- Select a representative sample – guidance on structured and randomly selected web pages when it is not feasible to evaluate every web page on a website.
A note on step 1: Define the scope of the evaluation: This is an important strategic step. Much of the time, the scope of the evaluation should represent the entire webpage or application; however, there are many cases where this is not possible or strategically sound. Expert consulting will help you understand what’s best in your situation.
