The accessibility audit playbook: WCAG 2.2 AA in 5 days

The access audit playbook: WCAG 2.2 AA in 5 days.

An access check does not have to take weeks. Here is the 5-day plan we use to hit WCAG 2.2 AA on all public pages.

Day 1: scan.

Run axe-core in CI on all public pages. The 30-day marketing website guide puts this check in the build week. Sort the bad hits into two piles: critical and serious. Build the fix list.

Start with the axe-core browser add-on. Audit the five pages with the most traffic first. Move those same tests into a CI job the same day. We run @axe-core/playwright in a GitHub Actions job.

Critical hits get fixed first. Colour contrast fails. Missing form labels. Missing alt text. Serious hits wait for Day 5. Missing landmarks. Duplicate IDs. What you end up with is a ranked backlog. Not just a list of fails.

Day 2: keyboard.

Test each page with the keyboard only. Can you reach each link and button? Does the tab order make sense? Can you see where focus is?

Tab through each page from top to bottom. Each link, button, input and select must be reachable with no mouse. The tab order must match how the page reads. Do not let a side panel grab focus mid-flow. A visible focus ring is not optional. If the browser ring is too thin, add your own outline. Watch the big traps: mega menus, sliders, modals and the skip link. Mega menus with aria-hidden on dropdown panels block screen reader navigation — our JavaScript SEO guide covers how to structure accessible navigation so search bots and assistive technology both work correctly.

Keyboard only users are 10 to 15 percent of your mobile crowd.

Day 3: screen reader.

Test the top five user paths with a screen reader. VoiceOver on Mac. NVDA on Windows. On each path, check each heading, landmark, form label and button.

The five key paths are:

Home to contact. Blog list to a post. Services list to one service. Tools list to one tool. The footer signup.

The three most common fails are:

Headings that skip a level. Landmarks used as style wrappers. Form inputs with no real label.

Fix those three and most screen reader issues go away. The heading order checker will tell you in one click whether a heading level skips. Skipped levels confuse screen readers and search crawlers alike. One fix, two wins.

Day 4: contrast.

Test each text and colour pair. Contrast compliance also benefits SEO — accessible pages keep users on-page longer, which signals quality to search engines. Our on-page SEO checklist covers how dwell time and accessibility signals connect to ranking performance. Body text: 4.5 to 1. Big text and UI controls: 3 to 1.

Use the axe-core contrast check or the WebAIM one. Test each pair. Include text on photos and text over colour blocks.

Our palette puts navy on a light base for body text. That pair scores 9.2 to 1. Well above the 4.5 to 1 rule. The one fail we hit was yellow text on a light surface. Yellow only works on dark surfaces.

Day 5: fix.

Apply the fixes. Run axe-core again. Walk the five paths again. Write up the findings and the fixes.

Each axe-core hit gets a code fix today. Do not push them to next week. After the fixes, run the full CI scan again. Aim for zero critical and serious hits. Walk the five key paths by hand.

Then write the report:

What we found. How bad it was. What we fixed. What is left. Why it is still open. The plan to keep watching.

The hand-off.

A 5 to 10 page audit report.

The work after that.

Access is not a one-off job. We run axe-core in CI on all PRs. We walk key paths by hand each quarter.