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Digital Inclusion

Preparing for an audit

This guidance is intended for colleagues who are responsible for managing or maintaining websites, or who need to prepare for an accessibility audit.

The GOV.UK website suggest three options for auditing a website for accessibility issues. These three options have been adapted for University use below. 

Depending on your team’s expertise, resources, and working arrangements, you may choose to follow one option or a combination of approaches.

Auditing options

Option 1: Complete a detailed audit within your team 

This option is preferable if you have technical web expertise (eg. developers) and resource in your team, or access to technical expertise. 

The University recommends the following tools for conducting a detailed content audit: 

  • WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool - a free, visual tool that provides visual feedback about the accessibility of your web content by injecting icons and indicators into your page. 
  • Lighthouse (Google product) - a free accessibility, SEO and best practice tool that can be accessed from within Google Chrome (DevTools). Chrome Extension also available. 
  • aXe (Google / Microsoft endorsed) - a free accessibility auditing tool that is available in both Chrome DevTools and as an extension.  
  • Siteimprove - a paid, University endorsed tool that is used to audit accessibility for T4 managed University websites and StaffNet.  Contact your local web and digital team for more information or access to reports. 
  • Accessibility Insights for Web - a free extension for Chrome and Microsoft Edge that helps users to find and fix accessibility issues in web apps and sites. 

Option 2: Pay a third party to do a detailed audit on behalf of your team 

The GOV.UK guidance estimates that a three-day, third-party audit of a small website or interface could cost between £1300 and £4000: 

If this option is financially and operationally viable for your team, please contact your local web and digital team in the first instance. 

Option 3: Complete a basic accessibility check if your team cannot do a detailed one 

This is the most suitable option if you do not have access to technical expertise, experience and resource in your team.  

    1. Preparing to do a basic accessibility check 
    2. Text content 
    3. Images, video and audio content 
    4. Interactive tools and transactions 
    5. PDFs and other documents 
    6. Technology 
    7. HTML checks

Although the government describes this as a ‘basic accessibility check’, it is fairly detailed in its coverage and should highlight the most common accessibility issues with your web content.

You may also find it useful to combine this audit process with an accessibility tool: 

  • Lighthouse (Google product) - a free accessibility, SEO and best practice tool that can be accessed from within Google Chrome (DevTools). Chrome Extension also available. 
  • WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool - a free, visual tool that provides visual feedback about the accessibility of your web content by injecting icons and indicators into your page.