A WCAG 2.1 AA Audit Checklist Outlines What Auditors Evaluate Across Screen Reader Testing, Keyboard Testing, Code Inspection, and Visual Review
A WCAG 2.1 AA audit checklist outlines every area an accessibility professional evaluates when reviewing a website against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 at conformance level AA. The checklist covers screen reader testing, keyboard testing, code inspection, visual review, and a supporting scan. Each WCAG 2.1 AA success criterion at levels A and AA is evaluated against the actual rendered experience, not a static crawl of the page source.
| Area | What It Covers |
|---|---|
| Standard | WCAG 2.1, levels A and AA, referenced by ADA Title II and most procurement requirements |
| Methods | Screen reader testing, keyboard testing, code inspection, visual review, and a scan |
| Coverage | Scans flag approximately 25% of issues; the remaining 75% requires manual evaluation |
| Output | An audit report listing issues, locations, severity, and remediation guidance |
What the WCAG 2.1 AA Audit Checklist Evaluates
The checklist is organized around the four POUR principles: perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust. Every success criterion at level A and AA falls under one of these principles, and each is reviewed against the live product.
Perceivable
Auditors evaluate text alternatives for non-text content, captions and transcripts for media, semantic structure, sensory instructions that do not rely on shape or location alone, presentation properties such as orientation and reflow at 400% zoom, and identification of input purpose for form fields.
Operable
The checklist covers full keyboard access, visible focus indicators, no keyboard traps, sufficient time controls, motion and animation safeguards, skip links and bypass mechanisms, descriptive page titles, logical focus order, link purpose in context, multiple ways to find pages, descriptive headings and labels, and pointer gesture and target size requirements introduced in 2.1.
Understandable
Auditors evaluate page language declaration, language of parts, predictable navigation and identification, consistent component behavior, input assistance including error identification and suggestion, and labels or instructions for user input.
Robust
The checklist verifies that markup parses correctly, name, role, and value are exposed for every component, and status messages are announced to assistive technology without a change of context.
Methods Used to Work Through the Checklist
A WCAG 2.1 AA evaluation cannot be completed by a scan alone. Scans review HTML, CSS, and ARIA against a fixed set of rules and flag approximately 25% of issues. The remaining 75% requires a human auditor working through the checklist using assistive technology and judgment.
Screen reader testing is conducted with NVDA or JAWS in Chrome and VoiceOver in Safari to verify that headings, landmarks, form labels, link text, image descriptions, and dynamic content are announced correctly. Keyboard testing confirms that every interactive element can be reached and operated without a mouse, that focus is visible, and that focus order matches the visual order. Code inspection examines markup, ARIA usage, and underlying structure. Visual inspection covers reflow at 320 CSS pixels, 200% and 400% zoom, and content that depends on shape, size, or position.
What an Audit Report Produces
Working through the checklist produces a report that lists each identified issue, the page or component where it appears, the WCAG 2.1 success criterion it relates to, severity, and remediation guidance. Most accessibility audits start at 1,000 dollars and range to 3,000 dollars depending on the number of unique pages, templates, and user flows in scope. The report becomes the working document for the remediation phase and the basis for any conformance documentation that follows.
How the Checklist Connects to ADA Requirements
Under ADA Title II, public entities are required to conform to WCAG 2.1 level AA for web content and mobile apps within the regulation’s conformance dates. ADA Title III does not specify a technical standard, but courts and settlements consistently reference WCAG 2.1 AA as the working benchmark. A WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility checklist gives organizations a defined scope of evaluation that aligns with how the rule is written and how risk is reduced in practice.
The checklist is not a self-certification tool. It defines the scope of work an accessibility professional performs when conducting a manual audit of a website against WCAG 2.1 AA.