What to Expect from an Accessibility Audit Report
An accessibility audit report is the deliverable you receive after a professional evaluation of your website against Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). It documents every identified issue, where it occurs, which WCAG criterion it relates to, and how to fix it. The report is the foundation of any remediation effort.
| Key Point | What It Means |
|---|---|
| Primary Purpose | Documents every accessibility issue identified during a professional evaluation |
| WCAG Reference | Each issue maps to a specific WCAG success criterion and conformance level |
| Prioritization | Issues are typically ranked by user impact and legal risk |
| Remediation Guidance | Each issue includes a description of how to fix it with code-level or content-level direction |
What an Accessibility Audit Report Contains
A standard report includes an executive summary, the WCAG version and conformance level evaluated against (commonly 2.1 AA or 2.2 AA), and a page-by-page or component-by-component breakdown of identified issues. Each entry specifies the issue type, the affected page or screen, the relevant WCAG success criterion, and a recommended fix.
Reports produced after a professional evaluation cover what automated scans cannot. Scans only flag approximately 25% of issues. The remaining 75% requires human evaluation using screen readers, keyboard interaction, visual inspection, and code review.
How Issues Are Organized in the Report
Most reports group issues by WCAG principle (Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, Robust) or by page. Within each grouping, issues carry a severity or priority rating. This rating reflects how much the issue affects real users of assistive technology and how much legal risk it presents.
A well-structured report lets development teams work through remediation in order of priority rather than guessing where to start.
Remediation Guidance in the Report
Each identified issue should include specific remediation steps. These range from code corrections (such as adding proper markup or ARIA attributes) to content changes (such as providing text alternatives for media). The guidance should be specific enough that a developer or content editor can act on it without additional research.
Some reports also reference WCAG sufficient techniques, giving teams a direct path to conformance for each criterion.
What to Look for in a Quality Report
A useful accessibility audit report is specific. It names exact elements on exact pages. It references the correct WCAG version and level. It distinguishes between issues that block access entirely and issues that create friction.
Vague reports that list general categories of issues without page-level detail provide little value for remediation. If a report reads like a generic checklist rather than a detailed evaluation of your site, the depth of the audit itself may be insufficient.
After the Report
The report serves as a remediation roadmap. Teams use it to assign work, track progress, and verify fixes. Once remediation is complete, a follow-up evaluation confirms that identified issues have been addressed and no new issues were introduced.
An accessibility audit report is only as useful as the action it produces. The document itself is a starting point, not an endpoint.