There are a multitude of reasons that could lead to an organization needing an accessibility audit. This could be triggered by a demand letter or lawsuit against their website or mobile application, they could be looking for a proactive baseline of the most critical access barriers present on their website or application to help prioritize this in future development cycles, or a client may have requested a VPAT (Voluntary Accessibility Product Template)/ACR (Accessibility Conformance Report) of their software product in a procurement or RFP (Request for Proposal) process.
In this blog post, we will discuss accessibility and the outcome of a digital accessibility audit, specifically the output in the form of an audit report.
We will also discuss why audit reports are necessary and common pitfalls that prevent teams from properly implementing necessary fixes or driving organizational change in future development.
We will also discuss how Allyant uses digital accessibility audit reports to ensure our customers have the resources to successfully remediate WCAG violations within their website or application, regardless of their team’s experience with accessibility.
Why is an Accessibility Audit Report Important?
Teams mustn’t view an audit report as a development bug list or the full breadth of their digital product’s accessibility barriers.
Instead, an audit should be leveraged as a health assessment that informs teams on removing the most critical WCAG violations of a website or application, specifically those that affect system-wide access or component libraries, such as menu navigation, key components replicated and reused through a website, or critical user flows within a digital property.
Teams that successfully leverage accessibility audits view the initial product audit as a roadmap for driving change in critical accessibility and usability barriers to help make their website or application more accessible as quickly as possible.
However, this should also be viewed as a way to impact future product development lifecycle changes rather than just a one-time fix that is solved forever.
Most products change daily or monthly, so embedding best practices for designers and developers learned from the initial auditing and infusing accessibility testing into future QA and development cycles is the only way to build and maintain a more accessible product. This also ensures the ROI is realized from your initial investment in the accessibility audit.
For this to happen, clear communication of the issues found is critical when sharing the results of an accessibility audit.
Stakeholders who receive the results, such as internal developers, designers, content managers, or your third-party digital agency that built and manages your digital property, must be able to easily understand the results to efficiently and successfully fix the accessibility issues found.
This is why an accessibility audit report provided in an easy-to-navigate platform and format is so important to the overall audit process.
Why are Accessibility Audit Reports Necessary?
Organizations must invest in digital accessibility audits to ensure that all aspects of their websites and mobile applications are accessible to all users, including those with disabilities.
An audit is only beneficial, though, with a clear and detailed analysis of the audit’s findings. Without proper feedback that goes beyond identified WCAG violations with no other tangible insight, stakeholders have no way of knowing what is and is not accessible on their websites and, perhaps most importantly, how to maintain future WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) compliance when the next update (small or large) occurs to their environment. This is where a strong and easy-to-understand accessibility audit report becomes critical.
Writing an Effective Accessibility Audit Report
A standard web accessibility audit report includes a summary of the audit process.
The report will likely provide all relevant project details, such as the name of the website or mobile application that was reviewed, the level of WCAG Conformance the audit was performed to, and other key client goals post-audit delivery.
It also should list which views (webpage URL or mobile screen) or components were included (and why they were included) in the audit. The report should also state details of the organization that conducted the audit to provide validity to the audit process and outcomes.
This may include more specific information about the accessibility engineers who performed the testing, which we strongly recommend as it’s critical to ensure people with disabilities are included in this process to drive long-term success and product usability.
An effective report will then go into more detail about the audit process and results. It should mention the WCAG conformance level (most US and global regulations require WCAG 2.1 or 2.2 AA) the website or application was tested against, which assistive technologies (screen reader, etc.) were used, and any other details about the review process.
In the results section, the report should describe in detail the recommended actions to successfully remediate (fix) the issue(s) described so that the customer will know exactly how to fix the issue(s).
This is where most accessibility audits fail to drive more usable and accessible websites or applications. They don’t provide practical guidance for a developer, designer, or content manager to understand why the issue violates WCAG or how to resolve it with specific recommendations and code samples.
Only providing WCAG success criteria violations will not give a realistic ability for most remediators to fix the issues identified as they are not accessibility engineers or SMEs.
This is why it is critical to invest your resources in an accessibility audit or assessment that will be as specific as possible when describing the issue(s), including providing links and screenshots so that stakeholders tasked with fixing these issues can visually see the issue(s) described.
An effective report should also discuss ongoing monitoring steps, including QA testing of remediation performed so your team can receive real-time feedback on their work.
Ultimately, this becomes a critical training ground for teams to understand how to maintain WCAG conformance through ongoing release cycles and product development.
Allyant’s Approach to Tactical Audit Reports
At Allyant, our testers are all highly trained Accessibility Engineers through rigorous internal training and certifications through IAAP. This ensures that our team delivers our clients’ audit reports that allow for long-term remediation success.
Additionally, we deliver audit summary documents following most of our audits.
As the name implies, the audit summary document serves as a recap of the audit. The document discusses Allyant’s auditing process and details about the project, including links to all the issues documented in our HUB Compliance Governance Platform.
The document describes the key issues found during the audit, with links and screenshots. The summary document also discusses remediation plans and the next steps.
This not only sets the stage for all key stakeholders to understand the testing performed and the work ahead for successful remediation, but it also creates a strong deliverable for leadership teams on the importance of investing in accessibility through ongoing testing and remediation.
Another critical step to our client’s success is conducting an audit summary call with your internal team and any potential third-party remediation partners (digital agencies) for every project directly following our audits.
The lead Accessibility Engineer assigned to the project and testing process leads an audit summary call. During this call, the engineer reviews the key accessibility issues listed in the Audit Summary document with the client and answers any initial technical questions the client may have about the report and the remediation that will follow.
Of course, our clients have access to our ongoing Help Desk Support and real-time accessibility consulting on an as-needed basis as remediation ensues. This ensures your team has the expertise it needs upfront and long-term to build and maintain inclusive digital products.
Another important aspect of this call is having your specifically assigned Allyant Customer Success Manager discuss remediation plans, filtering issues in the audit report, connecting our HUB Platform to your JIRA instance, or any other next steps and support needed to drive successful remediation.
Audit summary documents (and calls) are Allyant’s primary support documents for accessibility audits. Of course, the most critical aspect of our client’s success is delivery in our HUB Platform. This platform provides a level of criticality for each issue found and allows your team to prioritize and roadmap key accessibility issues within upcoming sprints and development cycles.
Additionally, all Allyant issues provide a high level of detail to ensure successful remediation, such as custom recommended fixes and accessible code samples, allowing teams to gather an in-depth and practical understanding of how to resolve issues identified in the audit report. This level of detail and the streamlined ability to quickly and efficiently remediate findings are why leading web development agencies worldwide partner with Allyant for their accessibility testing needs.
Ultimately, our HUB Platform UI and audit delivery details are designed to provide customers with a greater understanding of web accessibility so that they can successfully maintain WCAG compliance following audits.
This is, perhaps, even more critical for software companies that contract with Allyant to obtain a third-party accessibility VPAT or an ACR for their product. Where most VPATs or ACRs fall short of driving highly accessible products is seen as a “checkbox” in procurement. This is the opposite mindset that software companies should have.
A VPAT should be completed after a robust and thorough accessibility audit of a software or digital product. As outlined above, the output of that audit, like Allyant, provides software teams with a highly tangible roadmap to product improvement and updated VPATs that show continuous product improvement over time.
Communication is key
Crafting and presenting effective accessibility audit reports requires technical knowledge and clear and detailed communication.
Even if a report demonstrates considerable technical expertise, it will only be effective if communicated clearly through a platform that allows collaboration between auditing and remediation teams in a clean UI. Without clear communication, individuals tasked with remediation will likely not understand the issues well or how to maintain web accessibility on their own.
Communication skills and processes are essential in all accessibility audit reports, especially when presenting to non-technical audiences.
Conclusion
Feel free to reach out with any questions or advice on writing and presenting effective accessibility audit reports or how our team can help you build a long-term accessibility roadmap, starting with a thorough assessment of your website or application.
