Verify WCAG 2.1 AA compliance across navigation, content, forms, colour contrast, media, and assistive technology support.
Web accessibility is both a legal requirement under the Equality Act 2010 and a best practice for reaching the widest possible audience. This checklist helps UK businesses verify their website meets WCAG 2.1 AA standards across navigation, content structure, forms, colour contrast, multimedia, and assistive technology compatibility. It provides practical testing instructions for each checkpoint so you can identify and fix accessibility barriers.
Web developers, UX designers, and compliance officers at UK businesses who need to ensure their website meets WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility standards and Equality Act requirements.
Under the Equality Act 2010, businesses providing services to the public must make reasonable adjustments, and an inaccessible website can be considered discriminatory. Public sector sites have explicit WCAG 2.1 AA obligations, and while private SME sites face less direct enforcement, legal risk and lost customers both increase without it.
It is the internationally recognised accessibility standard covering four principles — content must be perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust. AA is the mid-tier level most organisations target, covering things like colour contrast ratios, keyboard navigation, and proper heading structure rather than the stricter AAA level.
Retrofitting an existing site typically costs £1,500-£8,000 depending on size and how far it currently is from compliance, while building accessibility in from the start on a new site adds relatively little to the overall budget. Ongoing testing after content updates usually costs far less than a full remediation project.
Automated tools like WAVE or Lighthouse catch roughly a third of issues (contrast, missing alt text, form labels), but manual testing with a keyboard and screen reader is essential for the rest. This checklist combines both approaches with practical testing instructions for each checkpoint.
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