ADA Compliance Audit 101: How to Check and Fix Your Website

A single click can spark a lawsuit. 

That’s the reality for businesses today, as people with disabilities increasingly take legal action when inaccessible websites stop them from performing key tasks like shopping, booking services, or accessing critical information. What looks like a perfectly functional site to some users can be a frustrating dead end to others — and expensive legal risk for businesses.

In the U.S., the Americans with Disabilities Act(opens in a new tab) (ADA) has required equal access for over thirty years(opens in a new tab), applying not just to physical spaces but also to digital experiences. And the compliance stakes keep growing: the European Accessibility Act(opens in a new tab) (EAA) is expanding global requirements, putting U.S. businesses serving European markets under new obligations to ensure accessibility. 

Creating an ADA-compliant website may seem tricky and confusing — especially if you’re unfamiliar with digital accessibility standards and guidelines in and out of the U.S. The best place to get started: an ADA audit.

Below, we’ll explain what an ADA audit is and how you can use the insights provided to not only enhance accessibility but also meet ADA website compliance requirements and keep your legal risk low.

What is an ADA Audit?

Think of an ADA compliance audit as a checklist for your website. You can use it to determine whether or not your site complies with the ADA and other accessibility standards, including Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act.

The process involves reviewing various aspects of your digital content, including its design, content, functionality, and user experience against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines(opens in a new tab) (WCAG), which was created by the World Wide Web Consortium(opens in a new tab) (W3C). The audit process will identify if your digital content isn’t meeting WCAG 2.1 or 2.2 success criteria and provide recommendations for remediation.

Put simply, an ADA audit is designed to give you a starting point on where you can improve accessibility and compliance across your digital assets. 

For a more in-depth list of what ADA audits look for, check out our comprehensive ADA compliance checklist.

Automated ADA Audit vs. Expert ADA Audit

You can perform an ADA audit on your site in two ways: an automated audit or an expert, or manual, audit. Both aim to identify WCAG failures and accessibility issues; however, they have different approaches to identifying accessibility barriers.

Automated ADA Audit: What it Can Tell You

An automated ADA audit relies on software and automated tools to automatically scan and test for common accessibility issues in your digital content. The benefit of automated accessibility audits is that they save you a significant amount of time and resources. They can also catch the most common accessibility issues, such as poor color contrast, missing alt text, and poor heading and label structure. 

Automated accessibility testing is a great starting point for determining your website's overall accessibility. However, automated testing alone is not enough to ensure ADA compliance or an accessible, smooth user experience. The approach needs to be supplemented with expert or manual testing.

Expert or Manual ADA Audit: What They Can Do For Your Website

An expert audit (or manual audits) is an audit performed by a team of accessibility experts and members of the disability community who thoroughly test your site for more complex compliance issues, including:

• Appropriate use of captions, transcripts, and subtitles.

• Good, descriptive alt text for images and other multimedia content.

• Input error detections and clear, prescriptive solutions on how to fix them.

• Compatibility with assistive technologies, including screen readers.

• Intuitive keyboard navigation on webpages. 

The benefit of a manual or expert audit is that it provides real, detailed feedback about the user experience of disabled users. Additionally, some expert audits, like AudioEye’s, include in-depth suggestions for accessibility fixes, which can streamline your path to meeting ADA accessibility requirements.

Hybrid ADA Audit: Best of Both Options

Automation alone can’t catch everything; expert audits can be time-consuming and resource-intensive — the solution: hybrid testing.

Automated ADA audits can identify common accessibility issues, determine a starting point for fixes, and supplement the results with expert testing. This will enhance your site's overall accessibility, improve the user experience, and bring you closer to ADA compliance.

Take AudioEye’s approach, for example. Our three-pronged approach to accessibility starts with an automated scan that detects 32 WCAG violations (more than any other tool on the market). Common issues are fixed by our Custom Fixes while our team of experts scans your content for more complex issues, further minimizing your legal risk and enhancing the user experience.

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Benefits of Conducting an ADA Audit

Digital connectivity will only expand, which means businesses must ensure their digital content is accessible to all users. A website audit is the first step to enhancing accessibility and providing a seamless user experience for everyone. And that’s just one benefit of an ADA audit. Additional benefits include:

• Meeting ADA compliance requirements: An accessible website isn’t just good practice — it’s also a legal requirement. Conducting an ADA audit helps you to identify WCAG violations and resolve them before they result in legal action — which can be costly and damaging to your brand. You may also want to consider partnering with someone who offers full legal support for all pages. For example, AudioEye provides full legal support in the event you receive a legal claim — from analyzing claims to auditing key pages — to keep your risk low and your content up to 400% more protected.

• Boosts brand reputation: Designing accessible digital content(opens in a new tab) shows customers, partners, and the general public that you care about everyone. That boosts your brand image in a huge way and can open the door to a bigger audience.

• Increases SEO ranking: An ADA audit can be a secret weapon to improving your site’s SEO rankings. Making your site more accessible makes it easier for Google to crawl and understand your website. This can help to increase your overall rankings and help you appear higher in search results.

• Increases customer loyalty and satisfaction: People are more likely to remember brands that make an effort to be accessible and welcoming, which increases customers trust and loyalty. Plus, an accessible website is easier for all users, resulting in higher user satisfaction. 

Most importantly, an ADA audit helps you detect and fix accessibility issues that decrease usability for individuals with disabilities, and help you make a genuine effort to create an accessible experience for all users.

Run a Free Accessibility Audit on Your Website with AudioEye

Running an ADA audit of your website is a first step to increasing accessibility across your digital content and meeting compliance requirements. While the results and next steps from the audit can feel overwhelming, don’t forget they can be fixed. And you’re not alone.

AudioEye’s Website Accessibility Checker helps you take the first step toward an ADA-compliant website. Our free scanner automatically scans your site for 32 WCAG violations (more than any other tool on the market), and our Automated Fixes apply automatic fixes for common accessibility issues. We go a step further with our Expert Audits from accessibility experts and users with disabilities to detect and fix additional accessibility errors. With AudioEye’s comprehensive approach to accessibility, you’ll get closer to a more accessible, compliant website that meets ADA and users’ requirements.

Ready to get started? Scan your website now and start your path to ADA compliance.

Want to see first-hand how AudioEye helps you achieve industry-leading compliance with accessibility standards? Schedule a demo now.