Website Accessibility Audits | Human-Led WCAG & ADA Testing

FIREANT STUDIO WCAG 2.2, Section 508, & ADA Website Accessibility Audit Report

Manual human-led testing against WCAG, ADA, and Section 508 — delivering certified compliance, not just a report of flags.

Government agencies, public universities, and nonprofits subject to ADA Title II and Colorado HB21-1110 face active enforcement pressure. The April 2026 compliance deadline has passed. A FIREANT accessibility audit gives your organization a complete, defensible compliance record — not a list of color contrast warnings from an automated scanner, but a thorough evaluation of every barrier a person with a disability might encounter, paired with a developer-ready remediation plan and certification upon completion.

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What a Real Accessibility Audit Actually Covers

Manual accessibility testing compatibility matrix showing six critical user flows tested against seven assistive technology and browser combinations including JAWS, NVDA, VoiceOver, TalkBack, and Dragon NaturallySpeaking, with Pass, Issues, and Blocking ratings per flow.

WHY AUTOMATED SCANS FALL SHORT

Automated Tools Catch About 30% of Real Accessibility Barriers

Automated scanners do one thing reasonably well: they check your HTML against a set of programmatic rules. They can flag a missing alt attribute, detect insufficient contrast ratios between two defined colors, and identify form fields that lack associated labels. These are real issues, and catching them quickly has value. But accessibility is not a syntax problem. It is a human experience problem, and no algorithm evaluates human experience.

What automated tools cannot do is equally important to understand. They cannot tell you whether a screen reader announces content in a sequence that reflects how a sighted user reads a page. They cannot detect keyboard traps, where a user who navigates with a keyboard enters a modal or interactive widget and has no path out. They cannot evaluate whether ARIA attributes are semantically appropriate for the elements they label, or whether they actively mislead assistive technology users. They cannot assess whether a complex data table is understandable by someone using NVDA. Relying on a passing automated score as evidence of compliance is not just incomplete — in a legal context, it can be damaging, because it establishes that you evaluated accessibility and concluded the problem was solved when it was not.

 

What automated tools check versus what manual testing reveals
What Automated Scans Check What Manual Testing Catches
Color contrast ratios between two defined hex values Color contrast failures in rendered text on photographs, gradients, and overlapping elements — the real-world conditions users encounter
Missing alt attributes on image elements Alt text that is present but misleading, redundant, or unhelpfully generic — descriptions that confuse rather than inform screen reader users
Whether ARIA roles and properties are syntactically valid Whether ARIA implementation is semantically correct — misused roles, contradictory properties, and patterns that break assistive technology behavior in context
Whether form fields have associated label elements Whether forms function end-to-end with keyboard-only navigation, including error messaging, validation feedback, and focus management after submission
Whether heading elements follow a sequential hierarchy in markup Whether keyboard focus order follows a logical reading sequence for screen reader users navigating through dynamic, JavaScript-rendered, or single-page application content
Whether video elements include a track element for captions Whether captions are accurate, synchronized, and capture all meaningful audio content — including speaker identification where it is needed for comprehension

FIREANT’s audit process treats accessibility as a user experience question — one that can only be answered by real people using real assistive technologies.

WCAG 2.2 AA accessibility audit executive summary dashboard showing an overall conformance score of 71 out of 100, broken down by Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust principles, with 120 total findings across critical, serious, moderate, and minor severity levels.

What a Website Accessibility Audit Includes

AUDIT COMPONENTS

Every FIREANT accessibility audit runs in two phases: rigorous technical evaluation against published standards, and human-led testing with the assistive technologies your users actually rely on.

  • Assistive Technology Testing – We test with JAWS and NVDA on Windows, VoiceOver on macOS and iOS, and TalkBack on Android — the screen readers that represent the actual distribution of assistive technology in use. Keyboard-only navigation testing covers every interactive element on each page template in scope. Testing is conducted by human evaluators, not automated scripts passing inputs to synthetic browsers. The output is an accurate record of what a user with a disability encounters, not a theoretical analysis of what the markup should produce.
  • WCAG 2.1 AA Success Criteria Evaluation – We evaluate your site against all 50 WCAG 2.1 AA success criteria across the four principles: perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust. Each page template type is assessed separately — your homepage, interior pages, form and transactional pages, media pages, and any specialized interfaces such as search results or interactive data displays.  Additionally we evaluate your user’s primary ‘goal’ and content pathways to ensure users can successfully navigate to them and achieve their goals. This granularity matters because template-level failures affect every page that shares that template. A single form pattern failing criterion 1.3.1 is not one issue; it is every form on your site. Evaluation is scored by template type so your development team can prioritize remediation by systemic impact.
  • Document & Media Accessibility Review – Websites rarely exist in isolation from their document ecosystems. We audit PDF documents against PDF/UA (ISO 14289) standards, evaluating tag structure, reading order, alt text for embedded images, form field accessibility, and navigational bookmarking. Video content is reviewed for caption accuracy, synchronization, and audio description where meaningful visual content is conveyed without narration. Downloadable documents — reports, applications, forms — are reviewed for tagging and logical reading sequence. For organizations with large document libraries, we help scope a prioritized document remediation plan alongside the site audit.
  • Remediation Report & Compliance Certification – You receive a priority-ranked issue register with severity ratings — critical, serious, moderate, and minor — that reflect both the severity of the barrier and the breadth of its impact across your site. Every issue includes developer & content developer – ready remediation guidance, with examples for common solutions where they accelerate implementation. VPAT documentation is prepared for organizations with procurement requirements. Upon verified completion of remediation, FIREANT issues documenting that the site has been tested against WCAG 2.1 AA, ADA Title II, and applicable Colorado standards – documentation that illustrates attempted a compliance record for legal and institutional commitment.
Accessibility audit remediation velocity chart tracking weekly progress from Open to Fixed status across six weeks, with a conformance score rising from 57 to 71, alongside a recent activity feed showing individual WCAG issues resolved by assignee.

We Test Against the Standards That Matter to Your Organization

STANDARDS COVERAGE

  • WCAG 2.1 AA – The international technical standard for web accessibility, published by the W3C. WCAG 2.1 AA is the baseline required by virtually every major accessibility law worldwide, and the explicit standard referenced in the DOJ’s ADA Title II Final Rule. It applies to any organization whose digital properties are subject to accessibility compliance requirements.
  • ADA Title II – Applies to all state and local government entities, including municipalities, counties, special districts, public universities, and community colleges. The DOJ’s April 2024 Final Rule codified WCAG 2.1 AA as the enforceable standard, with compliance deadlines that have now passed for jurisdictions of 50,000 or more residents.
  • Section 508 – Applies to federal agencies and to state and local entities that receive federal funding or enter into federal procurement agreements. The 2017 Section 508 Refresh aligned the standard with WCAG 2.1 AA, so a single technical evaluation satisfies both. VPAT documentation remains required for many federal procurement contexts.
  • Colorado HB21-1110 – Colorado’s own digital accessibility law, covering state agencies, political subdivisions, and entities receiving state funds. The law requires WCAG 2.1 AA conformance for websites, web applications, and digital documents. It establishes a complaint pathway for constituents experiencing digital barriers and requires a publicly accessible accessibility policy.
  • AODA – The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act applies to organizations operating in Ontario, Canada. Its Web Content Accessibility Standard requires WCAG 2.0 Level AA compliance. Organizations with Canadian web properties, or with audiences that include Canadian users under provincial jurisdiction, may require AODA compliance documentation alongside U.S. standards.

Colorado organizations: The April 2026 ADA Title II deadline for larger jurisdictions has passed, and HB21-1110 is actively enforceable now. This is not a future compliance window — it is a current enforcement environment. Colorado public agencies, universities, and state-funded entities operating without documented WCAG 2.1 AA compliance are exposed to complaint proceedings, DOJ inquiry, and private litigation. An audit is the first step toward a defensible compliance record, and the time to initiate that process is now, not after a complaint has been filed.

Library in a higher education setting including tables and books with large windows over looking nature.

Built for Organizations Where Compliance Is Not Optional

Some organizations have flexibility in how and when they approach digital accessibility. Most of FIREANT’s clients do not. Public institutions, government agencies, and organizations receiving federal or state funding operate under enforceable legal frameworks with complaint pathways, DOJ oversight, and litigation exposure. For these organizations, the question is not whether to achieve compliance — it is how quickly they can document it.

Website Redesign Regional Government Aurora

State & Local Government

ADA Title II and HB21-1110 create overlapping, enforceable requirements for every government digital property — from agency portals and permit systems to public meeting archives and constituent service applications. The question is no longer whether compliance is required, but whether your organization can demonstrate it. VPAT documentation is often required for technology procurement, and constituent complaints now have a formal pathway to DOJ investigation. An audit establishes where you stand and what remediation is needed to achieve a defensible compliance position.

Student at computer viewing CCA's Accessible WordPress website.

Higher Education

ADA Title II applies to every public college and university, and its scope extends to enrollment portals, financial aid systems, learning management platforms, student services applications, and departmental websites — not just the main institutional homepage. These are also the areas of highest litigation risk: when a student cannot access a financial aid application or a course registration system, the institution faces a clear and documented harm. Fireant has direct experience with higher education web environments, including multi-site CMS architecture and the institutional stakeholder complexity that accompanies it.

Mobile responsive WordPress website for Humane Colorado shown on multiple mobile devices

Nonprofits & Healthcare

ADA Title III covers places of public accommodation — a legal category that courts have increasingly applied to nonprofit and healthcare websites. Donor portals, program applications, intake forms, resource databases, and event registration pages all carry compliance expectations. For nonprofits receiving state or federal funding, HB21-1110 and Section 508 may also apply directly. Beyond legal exposure, accessibility is a constituency issue: the communities many nonprofits serve include people with disabilities at higher-than-average rates, and inaccessible digital tools undermine the organization’s own mission.

From Kickoff to Certification: How It Works

1. Scoping Call

We review your site’s architecture, page count, template types, and applicable compliance requirements. This determines audit scope, identifies which standards apply to your organization, and produces a realistic timeline before work begins. You will not receive a fixed-fee estimate without this step, because site complexity varies substantially and an accurate scope protects both parties.

2. Manual Testing

Our team conducts hands-on testing with real assistive technologies — JAWS, NVDA, VoiceOver, and keyboard-only navigation — against WCAG 2.1 AA success criteria and any additional standards in scope. Automated tools are used as one input among several, not as a substitute for human evaluation. Every interactive element, every content type, and every page template in scope is tested by a person.

3. Remediation Report

You receive a prioritized issue register with severity ratings for every barrier identified. Each issue includes a clear description, the WCAG success criterion it violates, the assistive technology behavior observed, and developer-ready remediation guidance. Where code examples accelerate implementation, we include them. VPAT documentation is prepared if required for your procurement context.

4. Certification & Next Steps

After remediation is complete – whether by your internal team or by Fireant directly – we conduct a verification review to confirm that all critical and serious issues have been resolved. Compliance certification is issued at that point, documenting the tested standard, the scope of evaluation, and the verification date. We also offer ongoing monitoring to catch new barriers introduced through content updates, platform upgrades, or third-party integrations.

Component-level accessibility audit findings showing site-wide issues tied to design system primitives including Button, Form Field, Modal Dialog, Carousel, and Product Card, with open finding counts and severity ratings indicating where a single fix cascades across all instances.

An Audit Is the Beginning, Not the End

When the remediation report is delivered, your organization has options. Many institutions have internal development teams with the capacity to implement remediation directly, and the report is specifically designed to support that. Every issue description gives developers the context they need; the code examples give them a starting point. There is no prescribed path forward, and no obligation to engage Fireant for remediation in order to receive the full audit deliverable. Our role is to give you an accurate, complete, and actionable picture of where your site stands — what you do with that picture is your decision.

Get started with an accessibility audit

Ongoing Accessibility Maintenance

What the audit cannot do is immunize your organization against future accessibility issues indefinitely. Content management systems evolve. New pages are added by staff who may not have accessibility training. Third-party embeds, video platforms, and plugin updates introduce new components that may not meet the standards your site currently maintains. Ongoing accessibility monitoring treats compliance as an operational practice rather than a one-time project, which is the standard that enforcement frameworks expect. This is not a pitch for a recurring contract — it is how accessible digital environments are actually sustained over time.

Accessible web design for higher education. FIREANT STUDIO's custom WordPress project for CSU.
Higher education web design experts. FIREANT STUDIO delivers custom, accessible WordPress sites like CSU Parking.

Accessibility Compliance in Practice

Colorado State University — Parking & Transportation Services

CSU Parking and Transportation Services is an operational hub serving more than 33,000 students, faculty, and staff on the Fort Collins campus. The department’s existing digital presence was embedded in a restrictive university-wide multisite CMS — one that was not compliant with WCAG 2.1 AA and placed the department in direct violation of both university policy and Colorado’s HB21-1110 legislation. Compliance was not an aspiration; it was an institutional and legal requirement.

FIREANT conducted a full evaluation of the accessibility gaps in the existing platform before designing the replacement. The audit process identified failures across keyboard navigation, screen reader announcement order, color contrast in rendered components, and ARIA implementation — issues the department’s existing tooling had not surfaced. Remediation was built into the development process, not appended to it. The resulting site was architected for full WCAG 2.1 AA compliance from the first component, with every interactive element — including a real-time parking availability integration pulling live data from a third-party API — designed and coded for keyboard navigability, screen reader compatibility, and semantic correctness. The platform freed PTS from the constraints of the shared CMS, brought the department into HB21-1110 compliance, and established a foundation that will hold up through content updates and future platform changes.

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Focused Accessibility Audit

For departmental sites, microsites, and organizations auditing a defined scope — a limited number of page templates, a specific application, or a single user flow. Covers manual assistive technology testing, WCAG 2.1 AA evaluation, and a priority-ranked remediation report. The right entry point when you know what needs to be tested.

Full-Site Audit

For enterprise sites, institutional portals, and organizations that need a complete compliance record across all page templates, transactional flows, media, and documents. Includes VPAT documentation and compliance certification upon remediation. Built for procurement requirements, legal defense, and HB21-1110 and ADA Title II accountability.

Custom Scope

Some compliance situations don’t fit a standard package — a platform migration in progress, a multi-site CMS, a document library requiring PDF/UA review alongside the site audit, or a phased remediation program with ongoing monitoring. We scope these engagements after a direct conversation about your organization’s specific requirements.

Common Questions About Website Accessibility Audits

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Your Compliance Window Is Open — For Now

The April 2026 ADA Title II deadline has passed, and HB21-1110 enforcement is active. Every day without a documented compliance process is a day of increased legal and reputational exposure. A Fireant accessibility audit is not a checkbox — it is an organizational protection measure that produces a defensible compliance record and a clear path to certification.

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