Website accessibility checklist

A plain-English checklist for content editors and business owners. No technical background needed. Work through it yourself, or use it as a starting point before booking a professional audit.

This checklist is a web page rather than a PDF file, so it works properly with screen readers straight away. Use your browser’s print option (Ctrl/Cmd+P) and choose “Save as PDF” if you’d like an offline copy.

Images

• Every image that conveys information has a short, descriptive text alternative (alt text).
  Why: screen readers read this text aloud instead of the image.

• Purely decorative images (borders, background flourishes) are marked so screen readers skip over them.
  Why: without this, a screen reader user hears clutter that adds nothing.

• Important text isn’t baked into an image, for example a flyer saved as a JPG with no real text version.
  Why: text inside images can’t be read aloud, resized, or copied.

Colour and contrast

• Body text is dark enough against its background to read easily, not light grey on white.
  Why: low contrast is unreadable for many people with low vision, and hard to read for everyone in bright light.

• Colour is never the only way information is shown. For example, a required form field is also labelled “required” in text, not just shown in red.
  Why: colour-blind users and screen reader users can miss colour-only cues entirely.

• Links are visually distinguishable from surrounding text by more than colour alone: an underline, for instance.
  Why: someone who can’t distinguish the colour still needs to spot the link.

Headings and structure

• Each page has one main heading, with smaller headings underneath in logical order. You don’t jump from a big heading straight to a tiny one.
  Why: screen reader users often navigate by jumping between headings, like a table of contents.

• Content reads in a logical order when styling is stripped away, not just when arranged visually.
  Why: screen readers and keyboard navigation follow the underlying order, not the visual layout.

Links and buttons

• Link text makes sense on its own: “read our refund policy” rather than “click here” repeated across the page.
  Why: screen reader users can pull up a list of all links on a page, out of context.

• Buttons and links are large enough to tap comfortably on a phone.
  Why: small, tightly packed tap targets are hard to use for anyone with limited fine motor control.

Forms

• Every field has a visible label, not just placeholder text that disappears once you start typing.
  Why: placeholder-only labels vanish exactly when someone needs a reminder of what to type.

• Error messages explain what’s wrong and how to fix it, not just “invalid entry.”
  Why: a vague error leaves people guessing, especially screen reader users who can’t visually scan the form for the problem.

Keyboard access

• You can reach and use every button, link and form field using only the Tab key. No mouse.
  Why: many people, including screen reader users and people with motor impairments, don’t use a mouse at all.

• You can always see which element is currently selected: a visible outline or highlight.
  Why: without this, keyboard users lose track of where they are on the page.

Documents

• PDFs have a proper heading structure and reading order, not just content that looks right visually.
  Why: an untagged PDF can be unreadable by screen readers even if it looks perfectly normal on screen.

• You avoid publishing a scanned image of text as the only version of an important document.
  Why: scanned images can’t be read aloud, searched, or resized as text.

Video and audio

• Videos have accurate captions.
  Why: this helps Deaf and hard-of-hearing users, and anyone watching without sound.

• Important information given only as audio also exists as text somewhere on the page.
  Why: audio-only content is inaccessible to Deaf and hard-of-hearing users by definition.

Quick tests you can do yourself

• Try navigating your own site using only the Tab key, no mouse, and see how far you get.

• Zoom your browser to 200% and check nothing overlaps, gets cut off, or becomes impossible to read.