Accessibility checklist for websites, apps and documents

Why it matters

The government’s Family Resources Survey found that 16.7 million people in the UK, or 25%, were disabled in 2024 to 2025. [S30] In health and care, many people using your website or app are doing so at a stressful moment, on a phone, perhaps on behalf of someone else.

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are the international standard. The current version is WCAG 2.2, a W3C Recommendation dated 12 December 2024. [S31] For UK public sector bodies, GOV.UK says websites and apps meet the legal requirements by meeting WCAG 2.2 AA and publishing an accessibility statement. [S32]

Content

• Pages use plain English: short sentences, everyday words, one idea at a time.
• Headings are real headings, in order, and describe what follows.
• Link text says where the link goes, without “click here”.

Colour and contrast

• Body text has a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 with its background.
• Large text, icons and the edges of buttons and fields reach at least 3:1.
• Colour is never the only way to show meaning.

Keyboard and focus

• Everything works with a keyboard alone, in a sensible order.
• The focus is always visible, and is not hidden behind sticky headers or banners (WCAG 2.4.11).
• Buttons and links are at least 24 by 24 pixels, or have enough space around them (WCAG 2.5.8).

Forms and errors

• Every field has a visible label.
• Errors say what went wrong and how to fix it, next to the field.
• People do not have to solve a puzzle to prove they are human.

Images and alt text

• Meaningful images have alt text that says what they show.
• Decorative images have empty alt text, so screen readers skip them.
• Text is never shown as an image.

Video and audio

• Videos have captions.
• There is a transcript for video and audio.
• Important visual information is described, in the audio or in an audio described version.

Motion

• Nothing flashes more than three times a second.
• Animation stops or is reduced when someone has asked for reduced motion.

Documents and PDFs

GOV.UK advises publishing in HTML where you can, and explains how to make non HTML documents and PDFs accessible. [S49]

• The main version is a web page, with any PDF as an extra.
• PDFs are tagged, with headings, bookmarks, alt text and the document language set.
• PDFs have a title, and say how to ask for another format.

Test with a keyboard and a screen reader

• We have used every key journey with a keyboard alone.
• We have tried each journey with a screen reader, such as VoiceOver or NVDA.
• We have tested with disabled people where we can.

Publish an accessibility statement

• Our statement says what standard we aim for and how well we meet it.
• It lists anything that does not yet work, and when we plan to fix it.
• It says how to report a problem or ask for another format.