Web Accessibility Testing: Foundations, Stakeholders and Inclusivity

Web accessibility testing aims to serve a massive, neglected market. The inability of users with disabilities to seamlessly interact with a website or application represents a direct threat to a brand’s reputation. 

Forward-thinking technology organizations see web accessibility testing as both a strategic business imperative and a humanitarian effort. Compliance is the floor; universal usability, for humans and AI alike, is the star to reach for.

To achieve digital inclusion, an organization must adopt a holistic view that extends beyond a technical audit. Yes, it’s about a programmatic approach to digital quality, but it’s also about empathy and empowering customers.

This comprehensive web accessibility testing guide defines the approach. It will clarify the core benefits — from risk mitigation to boosting a customer base — and explore the meanings behind terms like "A11y," inclusive design and universal design. More importantly, we will establish a foundation of empathy and understanding by examining the diverse theoretical models of disability.

This web accessibility testing guide is designed to provide a clear, actionable path to releasing digital experiences that are inclusive, compliant and optimized for all users.

This three-part web accessibility testing guide includes the following blog posts:

• Web Accessibility Testing: Foundations, Stakeholders and Inclusivity
• Web Accessibility Testing: The Tactical Playbook and SDLC Integration
• Web Accessibility Testing: Audits, Insights and Ecosystems

Web accessibility testing FAQs

Many product, engineering and QA professionals have some understanding of what web accessibility testing is, but some confusion can arise around related terminology. Let’s begin with some frequently asked questions around accessibility testing. 

What is web accessibility testing?

Accessibility testing is a critical part of software development that helps ensure that software, websites, applications and digital products can be easily used by people with disabilities (PWD) and any assistive technology users.

Testers use assistive technology and various additional testing types, such as manual functional testing or automated functional testing, to gauge accessibility features and identify areas for improvement. Typically, these audits aim to identify the most critical accessibility issues. They also balance the severity and impact of less critical issues against the time, effort and staffing available to remediate them.

In general, at Applause® we often use audits to:

• determine the types and frequency of issues occurring on pages 
• identify the most critical web accessibility defects 
• create a list of high-value accessibility issues that the dev team could address immediately.

Why is web accessibility testing important?

Accessibility testing addresses friction that assistive technology users face. For example, a page might fail to support keyboard navigation or block account logins. These failures result in lost revenue and brand damage. Testing also checks software against features that a customer might direct, that are governed by the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and the European Accessibility Act (EAA). 

There are many more web accessibility laws and policies worldwide. Organizations face an ongoing need to test for accessibility; and there is no such thing as a legally binding “accessibility certification" that you can achieve once and then not think about again. 

What are some web accessibility testing benefits?

Comprehensive web accessibility testing creates several key business advantages. It provides inherent legal and financial incentives by helping brands avoid lawsuits and penalties for nonconformance. Focusing on accessibility improves the user experience for everyone, not just those with disabilities. It also expands your potential customer base to include aging populations and 1.3 billion people with significant disabilities. Finally, it boosts brand trust and market reputation.

Let’s get into some of these individual accessibility testing benefits.

Legal and financial incentives. In the U.S., lawsuits under non-compliance to ADA are on the rise. Non-compliance with Section 508 limits access to government contracts, setting up compliant organizations to bid for business in that space. In the EU, the EAA mandates compliance as well, with financial penalties for non-adherence.

Inclusive user experience design helps everyone. Focusing on digital accessibility improves digital experiences for all and promotes product and service innovation. Features like captions, alt text, voice to text and keyboard navigation are essential for people with disabilities, but also help other users in various scenarios, such as noisy or hands-free environments. Making digital products easier to interact with and perceive increases usability for everyone.

Boosting the potential customer base. Digital accessibility testing can help businesses reach more customers. Older users, people with situational limitations and those using assistive technologies all benefit from accessible features. In an aging global population, digital accessibility becomes a long-term investment in user reach. Further, an estimated 1.3 billion people in the world live with significant disabilities. Count their millions or billions of friends and family members who take notice, and there’s a real revenue impact when brands prioritize digital accessibility.

Improved reputation and trust. Brands that prioritize web accessibility can boost public perception by demonstrating a commitment to inclusion and diversity. Those efforts, along with positive app store ratings and other positive signals, resonate with socially conscious consumers and employees. In addition, web accessibility can enhance technical aspects of digital properties, such as search engine optimization performance and improved design consistency.

What does A11y mean?

The term “A11y” is a numeronym — a word where numbers take the place of letters between the first and last letter of the word — for “accessibility.” Many people who use the term work within the broad accessibility community, and it has developed a deeper cultural meaning.

While shortening the accessibility term to its four-letter shorthand might help in conversation and writing, it does have downsides for some users. The term A11y can pose challenges for readers with dyslexia or cognitive disabilities. Some screen readers might even announce the term as “A‑one‑one‑Y,” which might cause confusion for readers who have not encountered the term before. 

What is the cultural significance of A11y? 

Many people in the digital accessibility technology community use A11y as a signal of advocacy for digital inclusivity. Some people pronounce A11y as “ally” as a show of support to the accessibility community. But this is technically a mispronunciation. The correct pronunciation of A11y is “A‑eleven‑Y.” 

On social media, #A11y is a handy and easily recognizable tag for posts, and it shows solidarity for accessibility community support. The tag, and the A11y term itself, helps a broader population embrace the value of accessibility as an ethical and practical usability mandate.

What is the difference between accessibility testing, inclusive design and universal design?

Accessibility testing, inclusive design and universal design are related but differ in scope. Accessibility testing uses assistive technologies to verify conformance with WCAG standards, as a customer directs. Inclusive design is a user-centered process that incorporates feedback from diverse users early in development. Universal design creates products usable by all people without adaptation, like curb cutouts. Together, these practices help companies ensure products are functionally accessible and genuinely inclusive for everyone.

• Accessibility testing. Testers use assistive technologies to assess accessibility features and identify areas for improvement. Accessibility testing is done manually with assistive technology and coupled with automated tests. Testers compare the test results to standards set by WCAG and the many international laws that govern web accessibility.
• Inclusive design. Inclusive design is a user-centered process that helps organizations build usable products, services and environments for as broad a group of people as possible. Inclusive design involves intended users of the product or services as early as possible in the design and development process to incorporate their feedback.
• Universal design. Pioneered by Ronald Mace in the 1980s, universal design is a design concept that applies to any industry, including software applications. Universal design enforces a design usable by all people without needing adaptation or specialization. Curb cutouts are the classic example of universal design; they help everyone — people in wheelchairs, bicyclists, people pushing carts or strollers and more. 

Inclusive design practices challenge the traditional software development lifecycle (SDLC) approach, which does not consider the broadest practical set of users. Following inclusive design enables design teams to include people that use assistive technologies in initial conversations. The dev org consults with these users throughout the SDLC, not just at the end, when it is difficult to fix issues and much more expensive. 

Moving to an inclusive design practice can challenge organizations to take on a new focus, rather than prioritizing quick releases quickly and or delaying fixes. Most organizations that make the shift quickly realize the long-term benefits. Once embraced by executive management and supported through education and other investments, inclusive design builds a momentum of its own.

What are ADA demand letters?

Though the trend toward web accessibility-related litigation is happily a slightly downward one, the U.S. still has a substantial number of lawsuits filed. Many of these lawsuits are filed against organizations that have previously had suits filed against them. Poor digital accessibility is not a problem that will just go away.

A more common occurrence that can precede a lawsuit is a demand letter. These letters are legal documents sent to organizations by attorney or advocacy groups that allege that the organization’s website or applications are not accessible for people with disabilities. A demand letter covers the specific issues found and requests they be remediated. 

The most effective way to avoid demand letters is to regularly work to comply with web accessibility standards. Sites evolve and accessibility bugs can get introduced with any update, so even the best sites can be targeted for a lawsuit. Here’s a quick checklist of how to avoid a demand letter:

• Complete a Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT). A VPAT is a standardized template that you complete to show how your product or service meets accessibility guidelines. Once it’s completed, it becomes an Accessibility Conformance Report (ACR). 
• Even if you are not fully conformant, an ACR shows where the organization stands regarding accessibility efforts. Publicly listing an ACR shows that the organization is working to make things digitally accessible. This public declaration of efforts and an accessibility plan can help ward off demand letters.

How do people with disabilities approach using technology?

People with disabilities want to use technology with the same freedom and respect as everyone else. They often use assistive technologies, like screen readers or voice-to-text, to navigate the digital world. These tools address barriers created when standards are not inclusive. Organizations must go beyond assumptions and study how their specific customers use products. Fostering this understanding allows teams to build products that truly serve all users.

Assistive technologies (AT) can address issues in the physical world, such as ramps in buildings. AT also addresses barriers in the digital world. For example, screen readers help blind or low-vision users to access, navigate and experience a website. Likewise, voice-to-text technology enables a person to speak and have their words translated to written text.

Beyond this basic assumption, organizations must do the work to understand how their particular customers plan to use their products and services. The more you can foster an understanding of people with disabilities across the business, the more you can truly serve them.

The difference between inclusive design and accessibility

Digital accessibility refers to ensuring that digital products, services and environments are usable for people with disabilities. It focuses on meeting established standards and guidelines, such as WCAG, to remove barriers that prevent equal access. Platforms like Windows, macOS, Android or iOS have accessibility features baked into them, such as screen readers and screen magnifiers. For example, adding alternative text to images (a written description of the image) enables a person using a screen reader to understand visual content. Accessibility is about compliance and ensuring that everyone can technically access and use a product, regardless of ability. 

Inclusive design goes beyond web accessibility by proactively designing experiences that consider the widest possible range of human diversity from the start. Rather than addressing barriers, it emphasizes empathy and designing for all users, including but not limited to people with disabilities. For example, including closed captions not only for users who are deaf or hard of hearing, but also for people watching videos in noisy environments or those learning a new language. Inclusive design is about creating flexible, user-centered solutions that benefit everyone.

Digital accessibility is generally considered a subset of inclusive design. Web accessibility focuses on satisfying mandatory technical and functional requirements, while inclusive design is recognized as a broader, human-centric methodology. This proactive approach requires designing with a comprehensive view of human diversity. It’s not just about permanent or temporary disabilities. Factors like ability, language, culture, age and literacy should all influence product design.

A critical element of inclusive design is the shift-left approach. This approach involves actively incorporating people with disabilities and their insights early in the SDLC. Web accessibility often represents a minimum standard. Inclusive design aims to move beyond this low bar to make sure the product is genuinely usable. The concept aims to foster innovation and provide a delightful user experience that benefits everyone.

Digital accessibility stakeholders and roles

Web accessibility testing and inclusive design requires commitment and effort by the entire organization. Roles across the organization have unique priorities and challenges around building inclusive digital experiences.

See what matters to staff in each role and what they contribute to digital accessibility initiatives. 

Designers. These individuals play a critical role in embedding digital accessibility from the start. They focus on creating inclusive, user-friendly interfaces that enable all users to have equal access to digital experiences. Designers may primarily focus on:

• ensuring color contrast meets WCAG standards
• providing clear navigation and logical content hierarchy
• designing forms, buttons, and interactions that are keyboard-accessible and screen reader friendly, as well as other interactions around other types of assistive technologies
• incorporating inclusive design principles, considering factors like age, literacy, culture and other user demographics

Prioritize digital accessibility during the ideation and wireframing stages — and involve people with disabilities and assistive technology users. That way designers help reduce the need to retrofit and fix issues that escape to production. More importantly, they create better experiences for all users.

Users. Web accessibility efforts aim to make the user experience as easy and pleasant as possible for everyone. People with disabilities or others may use assistive technology to interact with digital experiences. Users care about access first and foremost. Does a site, app or platform enable them to navigate, interact and complete tasks without barriers? Keep in mind that users:

• expect assistive technologies like screen readers, magnifiers and voice navigation tools to work as designed
• want clear, consistent design and compatibility across all devices and environments
• offer critical feedback for understanding real-world usability challenges that automated tools can’t detect

By engaging users of all types — particularly assistive technology users — early and throughout the development cycle, organizations gain real insights that lead to more inclusive products.

Testers. QA professionals help ensure that digital products meet web accessibility standards and function seamlessly across a range of assistive technologies. Their priorities center on compliance, usability and continuous quality improvement. Software testers often:

• leverage automated tools like axe, Lighthouse and WAVE to flag common issues
• perform manual testing to evaluate real-world scenarios and validate automated results. This testing should include people with disabilities to find issues that cannot be found with automated tools and for nuance that likely only a person using assistive technologies would find 
• assess technology across platforms, browsers and devices to ensure consistency for all users

Software testers should focus on providing a great experience for everyone.

Accessibility experts/advocates. These individuals serve as web accessibility guides and advocates within an organization. They may translate regulations, standards and best practices into actionable strategies teams can follow. They may also set up training for teams and knowledge repositories for ongoing storage of educational materials. Digital accessibility subject matter experts:

• provide deep knowledge of guidelines and laws like WCAG, Section 508, ADA, the European Accessibility Act (EAA) and other compliance laws around the world
• evaluate risk exposure and advise on remediation priorities
• lead training sessions and develop organizational standards to embed accessibility across teams

Digital accessibility advocates and experts bridge the gap between compliance requirements and inclusive design goals. The intention is to ensure digital accessibility is treated as a core organizational value.

Developers. These experts bring accessible and inclusive designs to life. Their focus is on building products that meet standards, integrate with assistive technologies and remain robust across platforms. Among other tasks, developers:

• write semantic HTML and ensure proper use of ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet applications) attributes
• build interfaces that are keyboard-navigable and responsive
• integrate automated accessibility testing into continuous integration/continuous delivery pipelines

Developers are key to establishing a shift-left approach, in which accessibility is addressed early in the SDLC versus as an afterthought toward the end. By embedding inclusive practices directly into the software development lifecycle, the organization can prioritize it early and often. It’s important that developers establish and maintain a collaborative relationship with testers and designers to remediate issues quickly.

Executives. These high-ranking professionals focus on strategy, reputation and risk management. They help support the initial stages of web accessibility and inclusive design programs and set an organization’s cultural tone. They also budget for digital accessibility initiatives and ensure alignment with corporate priorities. Executives might:

• view digital accessibility as a business differentiator, not solely a compliance requirement
• recognize the financial impact of digital accessibility, as it improves market reach, brand loyalty and customer satisfaction — not to mention helps avoid lawsuits
• ensure resources, timelines and KPIs support ongoing accessibility programs
• lead a cultural shift where accessibility becomes a company-wide value

For teams initiating new web accessibility programs in an organization, it’s critical to gain executive buy-in at the onset. Without this, digital accessibility efforts can remain siloed and underfunded. 

Legal and compliance teams. These professionals focus on mitigating risk and ensuring the organization meets regulatory obligations. They monitor evolving laws and provide guidance to avoid litigation and maintain compliance. They typically focus on:

• interpreting digital accessibility laws like ADA, EAA and Section 508 for organizational policies
• partnering with experts and testers to confirm compliance documentation
• advising leadership on potential financial and reputational risks
• ensuring third-party vendors and partners adhere to the same accessibility standards

The legal team’s role is largely to safeguard the organization while supporting its commitment to digital accessibility and equality.

What are the theoretical models of disability?

Theoretical models of disability provide a lens for understanding how users interact with the world. These models shape government policy and how organizations design services. Some models, like the medical model, focus on "fixing" individuals. Others, like the social model, argue that inaccessible environments create the disability. By understanding these models, brands can better recognize their responsibility to remove barriers. This ensures that their digital products are equitable and usable for every customer.

Here are a few theoretical models of disability:

Medical. Views disability primarily as a medical condition or impairment within the individual that needs to be treated, cured or managed by healthcare professionals. The focus is on the perception of the person rather than environmental adaptation.

Social. Shifts the focus away from the individual and onto societal barriers. The social model argues that people are disabled by inaccessible environments, discriminatory attitudes and lack of accommodations, not by their impairments themselves.

Economics. Frames disability in terms of workforce participation and financial cost. This theoretical model considers how impairments and barriers affect an individual’s ability to work and how society evaluates disability through productivity and economic impact.

Social identity or cultural affiliation. Interprets disability as a positive identity and cultural experience, similar to race, gender or ethnicity. This theoretical model of disability emphasizes pride, community and shared culture.

Charity/tragedy. Considers disability as a personal misfortune or tragedy that inspires pity and charitable response. It often portrays people with disabilities as dependent or needing outside help rather than empowerment.

A company providing a website, app, or service should strive to ensure they are not erecting barriers that prevent disabled people from equitable use of its products. And with that, we can look to the social models of disability to understand our responsibility. Brands need to keep up with expectations — or risk facing the consequences.

Applause goes beyond the theoretical. We offer a fully managed, end-to-end digital accessibility testing solution that helps brands shift from reactive legal defense to proactive, inclusive market leadership. Rather than relying on automated tools or ineffective accessibility widgets, Applause embeds accessibility directly into your software development lifecycle by leveraging a global community of real people with disabilities.

These testers evaluate your digital products using their own personal assistive technologies in their natural environments, providing actionable, real-world feedback. By combining expert-led conformance assessments, in-sprint testing, inclusive design UX studies and empathy training, Applause helps brands ensure that digital experiences are not just technically compliant, but genuinely equitable and usable for all.