Whether for your organisation’s website, app, or intranet, making your digital services accessible should be a top priority.
Accessibility audit testing ensures that your online space is optimised to have the user experience at its core. If you want your platform to be inclusive and user-friendly for all visitors, no matter what device or software they may use, then audit testing can help you to achieve this end result.
Accessibility audit testing overview
- Leading accessibility experts will examine your platform.
- In-depth inclusivity analysis undertaking automated, manual, and technical testing.
- User experience testing with assistive technologies.
- Testing to meet with WCAG 2.2 Level AA standards.
- Gain a comprehensive report of actionable changes.
- Live assistive technology demonstrations of discovered errors.
- Accessibility statement creation.
Measuring your level of accessibility
16% of the global population have a disability and it’s a fact that 7 in 10 would exit a website if it is difficult to use. To ensure that this isn’t the case for your business and help you to become compliant with web standards, our audit testing is measured against Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 Level AA success criteria.
Conducting a three-tiered approach, our accessibility experts will perform:
- Automated testing, using software to crawl the site for common accessibility errors.
- Technical manual reviews to assess your platform’s code base.
- User testing with the use of assistive technology to assess the user experience.
This thorough testing process will assess if your site is perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust. Presenting you with an actionable plan to guarantee that all of your users will be able to fluently navigate your platform and have a positive experience whilst doing so.
The audit brought to our attention issues we hadn’t previously considered. Particularly, around how some site issues were impacting on screen reader users and causing navigational problems on some components for keyboard users. The audit was timely as shortly after we were audited by the Government Digital Services.
Queen Mary University of London
Our accurate and reliable auditing process
Being leading experts in the accessibility industry and working in partnership with a pan-disabled user testing team at Shaw Trust Accessibility Services, you can be assured that we’ll leave no digital barrier unturned across your online sphere.
After undertaking a full platform analysis, we’ll effectively identify key pages, screens, elements, and user journeys for your robust audit accessibility testing.
- The HeX team will begin our systematic approach by utilising a suite of top performing specialist accessibility testing tools. These will scan through the code of your site to determine how technically-sound the platform is.
- User journey testing will allow for an effective assessment of the user interface, the experience, and the site’s technicalities. Our team can perform reviews of your website’s design to ensure your customers are going in the right direction throughout your platform. For this stage we assess the inclusivity of your sitemaps, wireframes, and pattern libraries. This will enable us to check your digital layout and interactive site elements provide streamlined navigation and can easily be seen and accessed by your online audience.
- Our specialists will manually examine your source code and infrastructure. By assessing your site’s underlying technology and architecture we can help in ensuring it fluently delivers your content and elements function efficiently across a magnitude of devices and software. Performing extensive reviews will identify errors within site templates, seek out accessibility issues within HTML, and explore the ease of flow to enhance the user experience.
- User testing will incorporate assessments on mobile and/or tablet devices, keyboard only accessibility, and simulated assistive technology. This includes comprehensive testing using screen readers, voice activation, screen magnification software and other assistive technologies to give a real-life perspective of the usability of your platform.
- Communication experts will execute an analysis of your web page content, assessing if it is both easy to read and understand. Our team will detail your readability scores and give an overview on any issues with how your content is both presented and written, checking it is inclusive, providing context, and that media types are given in an accessible format.
Together, our rigorous testing process will thoroughly examine the accessibility of your digital services and ensure your platform is inclusive for all users.
Delivering a roadmap of inclusive changes
Upon completion of your specialised and bespoke service, the following deliverables will be provided:
- Audit results will be collated into a comprehensive accessibility report. This will clearly outline the discovered errors, why they have failed to meet web standards, and link you to the relevant WCAG success criterion to give a deeper understanding on required changes to become compliant.
- Experts will provide recommendations on areas that are not specifically in breach of WCAG 2.2, but areas that could be improved in terms of general usability.
- You will have the opportunity to have a support call with the auditing team after you have been supplied with the accessibility results. This allows you to be able to ask us questions and query aspects of the testing process and findings.
- We will give live demonstrations with the use of assistive technology, such as with a screen reader. This provides a first-hand insight into how certain software and devices interact with the problem areas of your website. This session may also be recorded for your developer team to refer to at a later date.
- Our team will produce an accessibility statement compliant with Government standards, listing a roadmap of actionable steps for improvement.
We were very satisfied with the results of our work. The report from HeX was comprehensive and it allowed us to prioritise and plan the changes/fixes we needed to undertake. HeX delivered a thorough piece of work that has allowed us to make tangible changes. They also offer ongoing consultancy, so, I plan to use them again to review the changes we have made as we move to delivering a fully compliant website.
University of Nottingham
Achieving a Digital Accessibility Accreditation
Once your site has progressed to an agreed level of conformance and we have made some positive changes, we will also recommend that you are tested and accredited. Accreditation and user testing are delivered by our partners, Shaw Trust Accessibility Services.
This will provide invaluable insight and the assurance that you are getting things right for your user. You’ll be able to identify, understand and iron out any final issues that disabled users face on your digital service. You also have the added benefit of showing an accessibility accreditation certificate on your website to demonstrate your commitment to accessibility. You will also be safe in the knowledge that your website has been tested by a pan-disabled team of user testers.
Public sector legislation states that you must use disabled users in your testing. This is due to it being the only way to truly get the full picture of how your website is performing.
Book your website accessibility audit
Accessibility is usability, improving your website benefits everyone. Your user journey will considerably improve when you prioritise digital accessibility, enabling you to reach a broader range of users.
If you are interested in making your digital services accessible to people with disabilities and want to gain an understanding of how you can become more inclusive, get in touch using the contact form below or call us on 0115 888 2828.