Improve accessibility · Getting started
Start with one important task.
You do not need to audit an entire website or app before making a useful improvement. Begin with an important task, understand how it works for different people, and record what you know.
1. Choose a task someone needs to complete
Examples include finding opening hours, booking an appointment, completing a purchase, signing up, finding support, or reading an important update. Choose a real task rather than an isolated screen or component.
2. Work out what the task asks of a person
Consider how someone finds the task, understands the instructions, navigates, enters information, acts on controls, recognises the result and recovers from mistakes. Explore the Barrier Library for examples of demands that are easy to overlook.
3. Gather more than one kind of evidence
- Feedback and lived experience: what people say happened, in their own context.
- Human evaluation: complete the task with relevant input methods, zoom, and assistive technology.
- Automated checks: useful for finding some technical issues, not for establishing that the task is accessible.
- Standards and guidance: investigate relevant requirements, without assuming they cover every barrier.
Start with the first testing guide or use an Investigation when you don't know why a task is difficult.
4. Record a starting-point observation
Write down the task, environment, expected result, observed result, impact, source of evidence and what remains unknown. Distinguish what you personally tested from what someone else reported.
Example observation
- Task
- Complete an enquiry form.
- Observation
- At 200% zoom, the submit control overlaps the final field in the tested browser.
- Impact
- Submission becomes difficult.
- Still unknown
- Whether the issue occurs in other browsers or at other sizes.
5. Choose one change and verify it
Agree on the intended outcome before changing the interface. Then repeat the task in the environment where the barrier occurred and check for unintended effects elsewhere. Continue with prioritising and verifying improvements.