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Accessibility Issues

Introduction

AAArdvark’s issue management system is designed to make accessibility remediation simple and efficient for your team. Just run a scan to get started and uncover the issues that need attention.

You must run a scan on the site you wish to view issues for first, or this menu item will not be accessible.

Basic Concepts

There are a few important concepts to understand before diving into the Issues tab.

Issues

Accessibility issues on your site are mapped to specific WCAG Success Criteria, such as insufficient contrast or missing descriptive text. Think of an issue as a category of problem that may have multiple occurrences.

Instances

An instance is a specific example of an issue on your site. For example, a missing alt text issue may have instances on several images across multiple pages.

We use advanced pattern matching in an attempt to group like issues together. This grouping enables developers to better identify the source template for grouped instances, even if they occur on multiple pages of your site.

Instance of issues that appear on several pages.

Issue Categories

Issues in AAArdvark are categorized into three groups to help prioritize remediation:

  1. Errors
    These are confirmed issues detected by our automated scanner or identified through manual testing by an accessibility expert. Errors represent clear accessibility failures and should be prioritized for resolutions.
  2. Warnings
    Potential issues that require human review to confirm if they are actual problems. For example, a warning might flag text that could have insufficient contrast under certain conditions, which needs to be checked manually.
  3. Notices
    Turning on notices is optional, and notices are helpful reminders to review common elements that could cause issues. For instance, the automated scanner can check if an iframe has a title, but cannot determine if the title is accurate and descriptive. Notices prompt you to manually verify such details.

Tip: Start by addressing Errors, as they represent the most critical and actionable accessibility issues, then move on to Warnings and Notices as part of a comprehensive review.

Accessibility Issues for a Site

After a site scan or manual auditing, discovered issues will be listed under the Issues tab on your Site’s Dashboard.

Filtering Issues

Use the filters in the Issues tab to search, sort, and prioritize accessibility issues. Filters include severity, status, assignment, and more, helping you focus on what matters most.

Overview of filtering issues.

Search Issues

Search for issues by entering keywords, WCAG criteria, or descriptions. For example, you can search for ‘color contrast’ or a specific success criterion like ‘1.4.3.’

Sort Issues

Sort issues by priority to focus on what needs attention first. Priority is determined by:

  • Severity: How impactful the issue is for users
  • Urgency: How quickly the issue should be resolved
  • Instances: The number of times the issue occurs on your site

You can also sort issues by severity or chronological order.

Severity

Issues can be filtered by Severity, all of which is determined by the impact the issue has on the site users. The choices available are:

  • All
  • Critical
  • Very High
  • High
  • Moderate
  • Low
  • Warning

Type

The Type dropdown can be used to filter issues depending on whether they were caught in an Automatic scan, or added as a manual issue. The choices available are:

  • All
  • Automatic
  • Manual

Status

Issues can be sorted by Status, whether they are active, resolved, or not an issue. This allows users to discern what issues need resolving and are already resolved. The choices available are:

  • All
  • Active
  • Resolved
  • Not an Issue

Assigned To

To find out which issues are assigned to certain assignees, the Assigned To filter will allow users to select which assignee they want to filter by. Issues that have been assigned to other Workspace users will appear under the filter. If they have not been assigned to anyone, they will remain under the Unassigned filter.

The choices available are:

  • Anyone
  • Assigned to me
  • Unassigned

Success Criteria

Issues can be sorted by WCAG Success Criteria. Depending on the Success Criteria of issues captured on the site, either through automatic or manual audits, these criteria will be listed out on the dropdown to use as filters. 

Success Criteria dropdown depicting WCAG criteria for accessibility issues.

Pages

The Pages filter can be utilized to view the list of issues for specific pages or for the overall site. This makes it so that users can see what issues have been found on certain pages and address them individually.

Filter the issues by looking through pages in the dropdown.

Issue Details

Click an issue in the Issues List to open the detail view. This includes:

  • Description: A clear explanation of the issue.
  • Recommendations: Suggested solutions and examples.
  • Instances: A list of all places this issue occurs on your site.
  • Comments: Notes or discussions from your team.
  • Status: Whether the issue is Active, Resolved, or Not an Issue.

Use the Previous Issue and Next Issue arrow buttons at the top of the page to navigate between the Issue Detail pages.

Details of an issue with information on what it means and how to fix it.

Assigning Issues

Assign issues to team members to streamline your workflow.

  1. Open the issue detail view.
  2. Click Change Assignee.
  3. Select a user from the list and click Update to save. Assigned issues will appear under the user’s name in the Assigned To filter.

Issue Status

The current status is visible in the top right and is one of Active, Resolved (pending scan or review), Resolved, or Not an Issue. Clicking on the issue will display a drop-down that will update the issue status.

  • Active: At least one instance of the issue was seen in the most recent scan and is not ignored.
  • Resolved (pending scan or review): A user has Resolved the issue, but it is pending confirmation on the next scan or manual review.
  • Resolved: The most recent scan saw zero instances of the issue.
  • Not an Issue: The issue has been flagged to be ignored, and will not be set to Active if instances are seen in a scan.
  • Delete: If the issue was manually recorded by a user, the issue can be deleted by an Administrator, Project Manager, or Accessibility Tester.
Select dropdown to mark the issue as active, resolved, or not an issue.

Resolving Issues

You can also set the status of an entire issue to fixed by choosing Resolve in the status drop-down on the top right of the issue page.

If any instances of these issues are seen in a subsequent scan, the issue will be reopened for you to take another look.

Marking Instances as Fixed

Once you have resolved an instance, you can click the Mark as Fixed button to mark it as fixed. The fix will be confirmed during the next scan of the site or through manual review.

If an instance marked as fixed is seen in a subsequent scan, it will be labeled as Reopened for you to take another look. When all instances are confirmed fixed or marked as not an issue, the issue will be automatically set as resolved.

Commenting on Issues or Instances

Collaborate with your team by adding comments to issues or instances.

  1. Click the Comments tab in the issue detail view.
  2. Type your comment and use @mentions to tag team members. Only members of the relevant team can be tagged in comments.

False Positives

Automated scans aren’t perfect and may flag ambiguous situations as issues. If you determine an issue is a false positive after manual review, mark it as Not an Issue to remove it from the active list.

Still stuck?

File a support ticket with our five-star support team to get more help.

File a ticket

  • Please provide any information that will be helpful in helping you get your issue fixed. What have you tried already? What results did you expect? What did you get instead?
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