25 checks that catch the most common accessibility failures, grouped by area, each written as one sentence with its WCAG reference, and marked for whether a scanner catches it or a human has to.
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Nobody sets out to ship an inaccessible page. It happens one small, unremembered decision at a time: a form field without a label, an image dropped in without alt text, a focus outline switched off because it looked messy in a mockup. A checklist catches what memory doesn't.
"Be more accessible" isn't something anyone can check off. "Every input has a label tied to it with for" is. Each item below is one concrete, testable sentence, not a mood.
Accessibility isn't a box you tick once at launch. Sites drift: a new component ships without a label, a video gets embedded without captions. Run this again after every redesign, and periodically in between.
Each check is one actionable sentence with its WCAG success criterion in parentheses. Twelve are things an automated scanner (including ours) can check directly from your HTML; the rest need a person to actually look, click, or listen.
The single most common accessibility failure on the web, and usually the fastest to fix.
Found missing alt text? Fix it in minutes with the free alt text generator.
The failure most likely to actually stop someone from completing a task.
The scaffolding that lets people navigate by heading, landmark, or link list instead of reading top to bottom.
If a mouse is required anywhere on the page, someone gets locked out entirely.
Video and audio need an alternate path to the same information.
Small screens turn spacing and zoom mistakes into real barriers.
Both matter. A scanner is faster and never gets tired; a person catches what a scanner structurally can't judge.
Anything the HTML itself gives away: a missing attribute, a disabled zoom setting, an autoplaying video, a duplicate ID. A machine can read the markup and know instantly, reliably, on every page, every time you run it.
Anything that requires judgment: does this alt text actually describe the image, is this error message actually clear, can you actually tab out of that modal. No tool can read intent; that's what human review is for.
These 25 items catch the failures we see most often on real sites, but WCAG has far more success criteria than this, and no page passes or fails as a whole based on a checklist alone. Treat this as a strong starting point, not a compliance certificate, and treat this page as technique, not legal advice. If you need to know exactly what a law like the EAA or ADA requires for your business, talk to a lawyer who covers digital accessibility.
No, and be wary of anyone who tells you a checklist alone gets you there. This list covers the failures that show up most often. It isn't the full WCAG standard, and passing it isn't a legal guarantee. Treat it as a strong starting point.
The twelve marked "Automated" above: missing or placeholder alt text, unlabeled form fields, broken heading structure, missing page titles and language, links and buttons with no accessible name, disabled pinch-zoom, autoplaying media, and duplicate IDs. Scan your site free to see where you stand.
Go through them yourself, or have someone on your team do it: tab through your key pages, listen to a video with captions on, resize your browser to a phone width. None of them take long individually; they're just not things a scanner can judge on its own.
Use the free alt text generator: drop your images in, get WCAG-friendly alt text out in seconds, for descriptive, SEO, or e-commerce styles.
After every redesign or new template, and periodically in between. Sites drift as new pages and components get added. A monthly pass catches most regressions before a customer or a lawsuit does.
No. This page explains technique (what to check and how), not what any specific law requires of your specific business. For that, talk to a lawyer who covers digital accessibility.
The free scanner runs the automated half of this checklist against your real pages in under 30 seconds, with a plain-English fix plan for what it finds.
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