Accessibility Testing & WCAG 2.1 Compliance
Digital accessibility means ensuring your product can be used by people with a range of disabilities — visual, auditory, cognitive, and motor. This is both the right thing to do and, for many organisations, a legal requirement.
Legal Requirements
Under the Equality Act 2010, service providers must make reasonable adjustments for people with disabilities. For public sector organisations, the Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations 2018 require compliance with WCAG 2.1 AA as a minimum. Commercial organisations are also increasingly expected to meet this standard, and failure to do so can expose you to legal risk.
WCAG 2.1 — The Standard
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 are organised around four principles — content must be:
- Perceivable: Information is presented in ways all users can perceive (e.g. alt text for images, captions for video)
- Operable: Interface can be navigated with a keyboard alone; no content causes seizures
- Understandable: Content is readable; forms have clear labels; errors are described clearly
- Robust: Content is compatible with assistive technologies like screen readers
Our Standard Approach
- WCAG 2.1 AA is our default compliance target for all web projects unless otherwise specified
- We use a combination of automated tools (axe, Lighthouse) and manual testing (keyboard navigation, screen reader testing)
- Accessibility is reviewed in code review — not just in testing
Accessibility Audits
For projects requiring formal accessibility documentation (e.g. public sector clients who must publish an accessibility statement), we can conduct a full WCAG 2.1 audit and produce a documented report. This is quoted separately.