Why Accessibility Testing Isn’t Optional Anymore

Accessibility used to be an afterthought.
Not anymore.

Today, it’s a legal, technical, and brand requirement — backed by real user expectations.
Over 1.3 billion people worldwide live with some form of disability (WHO, 2024), and digital accessibility lawsuits are hitting record highs: 4,600+ filed in the U.S. alone in 2024 (UsableNet ADA Report, 2024).

Accessibility isn’t about “checking a box.”
It’s about whether someone with a screen reader, a keyboard, a color vision deficiency — or all three — can actually use your product.

Good accessibility isn’t invisible.
Bad accessibility is.

When users get trapped inside a modal, can’t submit a form, or can’t even find a login button, you won’t always hear about it.
They’ll just leave.

Teams who get serious about accessibility early don’t just avoid lawsuits — they build better, faster, easier-to-use products for everyone.

And that advantage compounds over time.

Why Tools Alone Will Never Be Enough

Let’s be honest: automated scanners help.

They speed up checks, reduce basic mistakes, and plug into developer workflows fast.

But even the best ones catch only about 20% to 30% of real-world accessibility failures (WebAIM Million Report, 2024).

Here’s what scanners miss badly:

You can pass a scan and still have a checkout form completely unusable for screen reader users.
Or a signup modal that keyboard users literally can’t escape from.

Tools find code issues.
Real accessibility requires finding user issues.

And that means layering different types of testing — in sprints, in CI/CD, and post-launch.

Miss one layer?
Users will notice first.

Browser-Based Accessibility Tools You Actually Need

Early in the build process, browser-based tools catch mistakes before they snowball.

But they’re not interchangeable.
Each tool has a real role — and real gaps you need to know.

axe DevTools (Deque)

Where it fits:
Inside Chrome or Firefox DevTools — perfect for developers mid-sprint.

axe flags missing labels, ARIA issues, heading structure problems — fast, clean, and sorted by impact (critical, serious, moderate).

Where it helps:

• Speeds up PR reviews dramatically.
  
• Low false positives compared to older tools.
  

Where it stumbles:

• It only sees the page snapshot you give it.
  
• Dynamic flows like open modals or lazy-loaded content won’t get scanned unless you manually open them first.
  

Consulting Tip:
axe is your first check. Not your last check.

Run it early, but always tab manually through complex flows too.

WAVE (WebAIM)

Where it fits:
Content-heavy teams — marketing, CMS editors, UX writers.

WAVE overlays errors visually on top of live pages: missing alt text, broken headings, bad contrast.

Where it helps:

• Great for non-technical training.
  
• Fast way to visualize what’s wrong — no DevTools skills needed.
  

Where it stumbles:

• Overflags minor technical warnings.
  
• Doesn’t validate flow — only page structure.
  

Consulting Tip:
Use WAVE to empower writers and designers, but don’t trust it to catch broken keyboard journeys.

Accessibility Insights (Microsoft)

Where it fits:
Sprint-end validation and UAT testing.

Accessibility Insights adds two critical things:

• FastPass (quick static scan)
  
• Guided Manual Tests (keyboard flow checks, tab order, focus management)
  

Where it helps:

• Forces testers to think like users — not just coders.
  
• Great for confirming flows like signup, onboarding, checkout.
  

Where it stumbles:

• Takes more time.
  
• Manual effort — not quick plug-and-play.
  

Consulting Tip:
Make Guided Tests part of UAT, even if sprints feel rushed.
You’ll catch focus traps and flow breaks that no scanner sees.

ARC Toolkit (TPGi)

Where it fits:
Formal accessibility audits and compliance-driven teams.

ARC doesn’t sugarcoat results. It dumps raw WCAG violations into DevTools — no visual overlays, no severity scores.

Where it helps:

• Critical when prepping VPATs, Section 508 docs, or legal compliance reports.
  
• Picks up structure failures other tools miss.
  

Where it stumbles:

• Requires deep WCAG knowledge to triage properly.
  
• Harder for junior testers to use correctly.
  

Consulting Tip:
Use ARC for final compliance sweeps — not mid-sprint bug fixes.

Siteimprove Extension

Where it fits:
Quick leadership reports tied to enterprise dashboards.

Siteimprove Extension shows page overlays — errors grouped by severity, tied into full monitoring platforms.

Where it helps:

• Good for trend tracking across big CMS ecosystems.
  
• Useful for non-technical leadership visibility.
  

Where it stumbles:

• Static checks only — real interaction flows require human testing.
  
• Cost can scale up fast with large environments.
  

Consulting Tip:
Trend graphs are great.
But unless someone tabs manually, you’ll still miss flow killers.

Quick Comparison

Automation and CI/CD Accessibility Tools

Getting Accessibility Into Dev Pipelines

Automated testing in CI/CD pipelines is where most teams get serious about accessibility.

Here’s the deal:
You can’t just slap a scanner on the end of your process and call it a day. You have to catch those obvious issues before they make it to QA.
No one wants to waste time fixing mistakes that should’ve been found earlier.

That’s where automation comes in.

axe-core CLI: Fast, Effective, But Static

axe-core is a developer favorite because it fits right into existing CI/CD workflows.
It’s fast, it’s reliable, and it catches major issues (like missing labels and poor contrast).

But here’s where it trips people up:
axe-core only scans the static page state you give it. If content loads dynamically (like modals or AJAX elements), you’re out of luck unless you manually trigger those states before scanning.

Most teams don’t realize this until they run the tool, see “no issues,” and then realize the modals are still broken for screen reader users.

Pro tip:
Think of axe-core as your first checkpoint, but always follow up with manual testing — especially for interactive features.

Pa11y CI: Simple But Limited

If you need quick sweeps across hundreds of pages (think blog posts, marketing pages), Pa11y CI is your go-to. It’s fast and simple.

But, as is often the case with simple tools, it struggles with dynamic applications.
If you have SPAs, complex user flows, or anything behind a login wall — Pa11y won’t catch it unless you script that dynamic behavior yourself.

Most teams make the mistake of running Pa11y and thinking they’ve covered all the bases when, in reality, they’ve only covered a small percentage of their actual user experience.

Pro tip:
Use Pa11y for content-heavy, static websites. It’s great for scanning marketing sites, blogs, or documentation. For apps? Go for something more robust.

Tenon.io API: Powerful, But Requires Configuration

Tenon.io is an API-first tool, perfect if you want to integrate accessibility testing directly into your CI/CD pipeline.

It’s powerful because you can define your rules and scan any content based on how your app works.
You control how deeply you want to analyze the page or what components to check.

But — it’s not plug-and-play.
Tenon requires some upfront configuration, and if you don’t set it up correctly, you might find yourself drowning in false positives.

Pro tip:
Take the time to tune Tenon to your product’s needs. Otherwise, it’s going to flag things that aren’t actually issues, which will slow your team down.

Manual Accessibility Testing Tools

Automated tools will catch the basics — missing alt text, improper heading orders, color contrast violations.
But they don’t catch the full story.

To ensure your product is truly accessible, you have to test it like a real user would.
Keyboard-only navigation. Screen readers. Manual interaction checks. These are the tools no scanner can replace.

NVDA (Windows Screen Reader)

NVDA is free, and it’s one of the best tools to understand how a screen reader user will interact with your content.

Real-world value:
When you turn on NVDA and navigate your site with the screen turned off, you’ll notice immediately if you’ve missed any key accessibility markers. For instance:

• Are forms being announced correctly?
  
• Do buttons have labels that make sense when read out loud?
  

The catch:
NVDA will give you an honest reading of your page, but it doesn’t catch dynamic content unless it’s loaded in a way the screen reader can understand.

Pro tip:
Test all user journeys in NVDA, not just static pages. Make sure things like modals, notifications, and dynamic forms get properly read.

VoiceOver (Mac and iOS)

VoiceOver is just as essential for iOS and macOS users as NVDA is for Windows users. It’s integrated into every Apple device, making it easy to test how your app or site works on Apple products.

Real-world value:
VoiceOver lets you simulate how mobile users with vision impairments interact with apps. Unlike desktop screen readers, VoiceOver requires testing touch gestures (like swipes and taps).

The catch:
VoiceOver can sometimes behave differently across platforms, especially on macOS vs iOS.
Testing VoiceOver on an iPhone will give you a different experience than testing it on a Mac.

Pro tip:
Always test mobile flows using VoiceOver on real devices. Don’t rely solely on simulators; real-device testing is critical for accessibility validation.

Keyboard-Only Testing

This one’s simple but often overlooked.
Unplug your mouse and navigate through your product using only the keyboard.

• Can users tab through every important section without getting stuck?
  
• Does the focus order make sense from the start to finish?
  

Real-world value:
You’ll notice broken tab orders or focus traps immediately.
If a keyboard-only user can’t submit a form, click a button, or exit a modal, that’s a huge accessibility issue.

The catch:
Keyboard-only tests won’t catch every issue. Tools like screen readers are still needed to validate the context of announcements and dynamic content.

Pro tip:
Use Shift + Tab (reverse tabbing) to catch focus traps. You’ll often find that users can’t escape modals or dropdowns when navigating backwards.

Color Contrast Checkers

Color contrast is an essential, but often neglected, part of accessibility.
You can test your design’s contrast with tools like WebAIM’s Contrast Checker or Chrome DevTools.

Real-world value:
This tool validates whether your text is readable for low vision or color-blind users, ensuring that you meet WCAG’s AA or AAA contrast requirements.

The catch:
It only tells you if there’s a contrast issue between text and background. It won’t catch color blindness issues where different colors may appear identical to some users.

Pro tip:
Validate that your active states (like buttons, links, and form fields) have high enough contrast, especially if the color signals function (e.g., red for errors).

Enterprise Monitoring Solutions for Accessibility at Scale

Making a site accessible once is hard enough.
Keeping it accessible as your content grows? That’s where most teams fall apart.

New pages. CMS changes. Marketing updates. Every week introduces new risks.

That’s why monitoring platforms matter — not because they solve accessibility for you, but because they catch drift before it becomes disaster.

Let’s talk about the real players here.

Siteimprove

Good news: Siteimprove crawls huge websites and flags accessibility violations tied directly to WCAG checkpoints.

Bad news: It mostly sees static pages. Anything dynamic — modals, popups, AJAX content — stays invisible unless you custom-script scans.

Also, Siteimprove is expensive. Like, really expensive when you scale past a few hundred URLs.

That said, executives love it.
Dashboards, trends, “compliance scores” — they eat that up.

 Use Siteimprove if:

• You need boardroom-grade reports
  
• You have non-technical content teams who need ticketed tasks
  

Silktide

Silktide feels friendlier.
More educational and less intimidating.

It’s cleaner for non-dev teams to use and explains accessibility issues without overwhelming people with jargon.

It’s a little less heavy than Siteimprove, but for many orgs, that’s a good thing.

Downside? Customization is limited.
If you need complex multi-app support or custom WCAG mappings, Silktide might feel too light.

 Use Silktide if:

• You’re starting accessibility governance fresh
  
• You want marketing, UX, and design teams trained without scaring them off
  

PopeTech

PopeTech is essentially WAVE at scale.
It’s built on WebAIM’s engine but turned into a monitoring system.

Super easy for universities, public sector orgs, nonprofits — anyone who needs regular sweeps without the cost or complexity of bigger platforms.

It’s not flashy.
But it gets the job done when you have 200–1000 pages and just need simple compliance checks.

 Use PopeTech if:

• You’re mid-sized and budget-conscious
  
• You care more about catching mistakes than producing leadership dashboards
  

axe Monitor (Deque)

Axe Monitor is what happens when you take enterprise accessibility seriously.

It’s heavy-duty: customizable audits, WCAG 2.2 ready, multi-app tracking, deep analytics.

But setup is not plug-and-play.
If you don’t have internal accessibility SMEs (Subject Matter Experts) already, axe Monitor will feel overwhelming.

 Use axe Monitor if:

• You have regulatory pressure (government, finance, healthcare)
  
• You already have a trained accessibility engineering or compliance team
  

Building a Accessibility Workflow

Accessibility doesn’t happen at one step.
It’s not “design it right once” or “run a scan before launch.”

It has to be layered across the entire product lifecycle — because gaps appear at every stage if you don’t.

Here’s what real-world teams do (and where too many teams still skip steps).

During Development: Prevent Basic Mistakes

The cheapest place to fix accessibility is early — before bad patterns spread.

• Run axe DevTools inside Chrome or Firefox every time a feature is code-complete.
  
• Developers tab through their own components, not just QA.
  
• Design systems bake in accessible components from the start.
  

If you catch missing labels, heading structure failures, or color contrast issues during sprint work? You just saved your team hours of rework later.

Sprint-End QA and UAT: Where Accessibility Really Gets Tested

Markup scans are helpful, but they don’t catch what users actually experience.

At the end of a sprint, your checklist can’t just say “axe scan passed.” You have to walk the real paths.

Tab through key flows yourself — from homepage to checkout, from signup to dashboard. Open every dropdown, every modal. Shift-tab backward too, not just forward.

Use Accessibility Insights Guided Tests to double-check navigation and focus behavior. Use NVDA or VoiceOver and listen carefully — not just for labels, but for lost announcements or focus jumps.

CI/CD Pipelines: Block Obvious Failures Automatically

Speed matters, but so does quality.

Automation helps by preventing obvious violations from reaching QA at all.

• axe-core CLI blocks pull requests with critical accessibility failures.
  
• Pa11y CI runs nightly sweeps across marketing and content URLs.
  
• Tenon.io API integration flags dynamic page issues in your pipelines.
  

This doesn’t replace manual testing — it makes sure QA isn’t overwhelmed cleaning up avoidable issues.

Post-Launch Monitoring: Guard Against Drift

Accessibility isn’t set-it-and-forget-it.

• Siteimprove, Silktide, or PopeTech scan live environments weekly or monthly.
  
• Trend reports track whether compliance improves or regresses over time.
  
• New CMS content gets spot-checked before publishing, not after users complain.
  

Leadership loves trends.
Users love when broken experiences quietly disappear before they notice.

Post-Launch Monitoring: Staying Accessible After the Handoff

Building an accessible product is one win.
Keeping it accessible six months later is a bigger one.

Once a site or app launches, the real fight begins — because every CMS edit, marketing push, content refresh, and feature release risks undoing your accessibility gains.

Tiny regressions slip in quietly.
You’ll never notice unless you look for them.

That’s why serious teams set up monitoring as a permanent guardrail — not a “once-a-year audit” after someone complains.

Real-World Monitoring Layers That Work:

• Quarterly full-site sweeps: Use Siteimprove, Silktide, or PopeTech to run wide scans across live environments. Look for rising issue counts early.
  
• Weekly spot-checks: Test new landing pages, blog posts, marketing promos before they go live — not after users report problems.
  
• Accessibility dashboards: Leadership teams love trend graphs. Use them to prove progress and argue for more accessibility headcount if needed.
  

Field Tip:
If your CMS allows publishing without accessibility QA review, you are already bleeding risk.

What Great Monitoring Looks Like

Accessibility Happens in Layers, Not Checklists

Accessibility doesn’t get solved by a scanner, a plugin, or a single sprint.

It’s built the same way real usability is built — step by step, sprint by sprint, with every new feature and every content update.

The strongest teams don’t treat accessibility as a separate task.
They layer it into design reviews, pull request checks, sprint-end UAT, CI pipelines, and post-launch monitoring — the same way they layer in performance and security.

When accessibility is handled like quality assurance — not compliance overhead — users notice.
Tasks become smoother. Flows make sense. Errors get announced. Modals don’t trap focus. Pages load cleanly on mobile readers.

It’s not flashy.
It’s not something most users will even thank you for.

But it’s the difference between a site that invites everyone — and a site that quietly locks people out.

That difference matters.
And every sprint you treat accessibility seriously, you close that gap a little more.

Accessibility testing can be overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. The right tools and strategies can make it simple. At Softeko, we help developers and teams like yours ensure their digital products are accessible and user-friendly.

Our services give you the support you need to succeed:

• Detailed Accessibility Audits: We assess your product using both automated and manual testing methods to ensure full compliance.
• Actionable Recommendations: We provide clear, practical advice tailored to your specific needs.
• Ongoing Support: Accessibility doesn’t end with an audit. We offer continuous monitoring to ensure your product stays accessible.

Accessibility isn’t just about meeting legal requirements; it’s about giving all users the experience they deserve. Let’s talk about how we can help you create more accessible digital products.