Does this scenario sound familiar?
An audit doesn’t make a website accessible. Fixing accessibility issues does.
You invest in an accessibility audit, wait for the results, receive a lengthy report or VPAT, and then… nothing happens. No issues get fixed. No progress is made. And then, a few months or a year later, you repeat the process. The same accessibility issues are found over and over, but nothing gets fixed.
An audit doesn’t make a website accessible. Fixing accessibility issues does.
If you’re running regular audits but not making any progress toward improving accessibility, ask yourself: Are we genuinely trying to make the web a better place, or are we just checking off a compliance box?
Why Accessibility Audits Alone Don’t Solve the Problem
An audit is just a snapshot of accessibility at a single moment in time. It identifies accessibility issues, but it doesn’t fix them.
Getting regular audits won’t protect you from accessibility lawsuits. Fixing accessibility issues will.
Audits are meant for action—they’re intended to be actionable to-do lists for making accessibility improvements. But maybe you’re not taking the next step.
Sometimes the team thinks, “We’ll fix it in the next big release,” and the issues get deprioritized and forgotten. Or they think, “We don’t have enough resources to fix everything,” and the overwhelm leads to inaction.
If you’re getting regular audits to track progress but don’t see any progress being made, you’re probably stuck in the audit trap.
The consequences are serious. Getting regular audits won’t protect you from accessibility lawsuits. Fixing accessibility issues will. Users notice when you claim to care about accessibility but don’t make any improvements. And you’re making a bad investment by paying for audits but then not acting on the results.
If your accessibility audit results always look the same, it’s time to start implementing accessibility fixes.
Moving from Audit to Action
If you’re overwhelmed and not sure where to start, here’s a plan you can follow to get things moving in the right direction.
1. Prioritize the Right Issues
First, get out the results from the most recent audit and take a look. Identify just a few high-impact user-facing barriers. These are likely issues with keyboard navigation, alt text, and form labels. Prioritize a few of these issues in the next sprint.
2. Shift Left
Instead of waiting for an audit, build accessibility into your workflow from the start. Have designers and UX professionals check color contrast, field labels, and focus indicators before handing designs to developers.
Include basic keyboard and screen reader testing in your QA process. Ask developers to navigate their work with only a keyboard before committing code. Use accessibility testing libraries in CI/CD pipelines to catch issues early.
What gets measured gets improved. If you’re only tracking problems, you’re not tracking the real goal: progress.
3. Assign Issues
Accessibility issues won’t get fixed if no one owns them. Log accessibility issues in your bug tracker. Assign specific people to fix them and give them deadlines and priority. Require developers, designers, and content managers to learn how to resolve accessibility issues. And hold people accountable for getting those fixes done.
4. Track Progress, Not Problems
Instead of tracking how many issues were found, track how many issues were fixed. Measure how long the team takes to resolve accessibility issues. Track how many new features are tested for accessibility before release. What gets measured gets improved. If you’re only tracking problems, you’re not tracking the real goal: progress.
Accessibility Is an Ongoing Commitment
Accessibility isn’t a one-time project; it’s a continuous improvement process.
Fixing issues early is cheaper and faster than fixing them after launch. Incorporating accessibility into the process prevents future accessibility issues.
Consistent effort pays off. If your team commits to fixing just five accessibility issues per sprint, in a few months, you’ll be miles ahead of the team that waits for the perfect time to start working on accessibility. Small improvements implemented consistently over time add up to big changes.
Start Fixing, Not Just Finding
That accessibility audit or VPAT is not the goal—it’s just a tool. The real goal is making your website or product accessible.
What’s one accessibility issue that you can commit to fixing this week?
AAArdvark can help!
With automated scans, visual issue tracking, and tools to streamline manual testing, AAArdvark helps teams move from finding problems to fixing them, faster.
Try it for free on your homepage today.
