Website Accessibility Remediation: Finding and Fixing Accessibility Issues

This guide explains how to find, prioritise and fix website accessibility issues. It covers audits, common faults, a step-by-step remediation workflow, ticket templates, CMS tips and verification methods.

Website accessibility remediation means finding accessibility barriers on a site and fixing them so people with disabilities can use the site. This guide explains how to locate problems, choose what to fix first, and make the fixes verifiable against WCAG standards.

What website accessibility remediation covers

Remediation covers the full workbench: automated scans, manual testing, code changes, content edits, and follow-up testing. It includes HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PDF and multimedia accessibility. The target standard is usually WCAG 2.1 or WCAG 2.2 at levels A or AA.

Why remediation matters

Improves usability for keyboard and screen reader users.
Reduces legal and procurement risk for public bodies and businesses.
Makes content reachable by more people and can improve SEO.

Common accessibility issues you will find

Missing or uninformative alt text on images.
Poor heading structure or skipped heading levels.
Controls with no visible focus state or broken keyboard order.
Insufficient colour contrast for text and UI components.
Forms without labels or incorrect ARIA roles.
Non-descriptive link text such as “click here”.
Accessible tech misuse: incorrect ARIA roles or properties.
PDFs and other uploaded documents that are not tagged.

How to find accessibility issues

Use a mix of automated tools and manual checks. Automated tools catch 20 to 40 percent of issues, but they are fast. Manual testing finds context problems that tools miss.

Automated scans

Run an automated scanner across the site. Use tools such as Axe, WAVE, Lighthouse or Siteimprove.
Export results into a spreadsheet. Group by page template so fixes can be applied at scale.

Targeted manual checks

Keyboard navigation: tab through pages and interactive components only with a keyboard.
Screen reader review: test with NVDA on Windows and VoiceOver on macOS or iOS.
Colour contrast: check text and UI elements against WCAG contrast ratios using a contrast checker.
Forms: test label association, error messaging, and focus handling.
PDFs: open in Acrobat or other readers to confirm logical reading order and tags.

Remediation workflow: step by step

Audit: run automated scans and select representative pages for manual testing.
Map: group issues by template, CMS component or feature.
Prioritise: score each issue by user impact and fix cost. Use that score to plan sprints.
Fix: make code or content changes in the development environment.
Retest: rerun automated tests and perform manual verification on the changed pages.
Deploy: release changes with release notes listing accessibility fixes.
Monitor: schedule periodic automated scans and user testing sessions.

How to prioritise fixes (practical decision framework)

Prioritise by combining two factors: user impact and remediation effort.

Impact	Examples
High	Pages needed to complete transactions, missing form labels, keyboard traps
Medium	Non-critical content pages with poor headings or contrast issues
Low	Minor visual polish, optional decorative images without alt

Score each issue: Impact (1 to 3) times Effort (1 to 3). Start with items that have a high impact and low to medium effort. Reserve high-effort, low-impact work for later.

Fix examples and practical tips

Alt text

Write concise alt text that describes the image purpose. For decorative images, include an empty alt attribute so screen readers skip them.

Headings

Use headings to show structure. Do not use CSS alone to change visual size. Ensure a single H1 per page and nested H2, H3 where needed.

Keyboard focus

Ensure interactive elements receive visible focus. Avoid removing native focus. If you add custom focus styles, test them at 2x magnification.

ARIA

Use WAI-ARIA to fill real gaps only. Prefer native HTML elements where possible. Incorrect ARIA often makes components worse.

Forms

Attach labels to inputs using the for and id attributes. Provide clear error messages and place error focus on the first invalid input.

PDFs and uploads

Provide tagged PDFs with a logical reading order. Where tagging is not possible, offer an accessible HTML alternative or a plain text version.

Remediation in common CMS platforms

Most issues are editable from the CMS if you follow patterns. Fix image alt text, headings, link text and form labels in the content editor. For templates, update the theme or component once and the change applies site wide.

WordPress tips

Update theme templates that print images to include alt attributes sourced from media metadata.
Use accessible blocks or an accessibility-ready theme as the baseline.
Document editing rules for content authors so future content remains accessible.

Front-end code fixes

Keep changes small and test in a staging environment. Replace non-semantic elements with buttons and anchors where appropriate. Add roles only when native semantics are not possible.

Testing and verification

Verification needs both automated and human checks. Automated tests give repeatable coverage. Human tests catch real user problems.

Automated regression

Integrate Axe or similar into CI to block regressions on new pulls.
Run site-wide automated scans weekly or monthly depending on content change rate.

Manual verification checklist

Keyboard navigation for all interactive controls.
Screen reader review of the page flow and controls.
Contrast checks at 100 percent zoom and at 200 percent zoom.
Form error flow and success messages read back by a screen reader.

How to write remediation tickets

A clear ticket speeds fixes. Include the following fields.

Page or component: exact URL or template name.
WCAG success criterion: e.g. WCAG 2.1 AA 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum).
Issue description: short and concrete.
Reproduction steps: step by step to reproduce the issue.
Expected result and actual result.
Severity: impact and effort estimate.
Suggested fix: code snippet or content change instruction if known.
Verification steps: how to confirm the fix with tools and manual checks.

Example ticket summary: “Login form: missing label on password field. WCAG 2.1 AA 3.3.2 Labels. Repro: open /login, inspect password input with screen reader. Fix: add <label for=‘password’>Password</label> and ensure id matches.”

Maintaining accessibility after remediation

Include accessibility checks in your QA checklist for every release.
Train content authors on alt text, headings and link text conventions.
Schedule periodic manual user tests with assistive technology users.
Monitor site-wide automated scores and investigate regressions quickly.

Metrics to track remediation progress

Number of pages or templates remediated per sprint.
Percentage of automated violations resolved monthly.
Number of user testing sessions and issues found per session.
Time to resolve high-impact accessibility tickets.

Quick remediation checklist

Run automated scan and export issues.
Do a manual review on a representative set of pages.
Prioritise by impact and effort.
Create clear remediation tickets with WCAG references.
Fix in development, retest, then deploy.
Monitor and repeat periodically.