Accessibility audit report
What I found, in plain language
Riverside Books is well-built and most of your pages are already in good shape — clear headings, a working keyboard path, and a readable layout. Five issues, though, stop some people from getting through checkout and finding books.
The most urgent: the add-to-cart and quantity controls have no name a screen reader can read, so a blind customer can't tell what they do. Fix that first — it directly blocks a sale. The rest are quick, well-understood fixes your developer can clear in a day or two.
WCAG groups every requirement under four principles — content must be Perceivable, Operable, Understandable and Robust.
Pages tested
The pages covered by this audit.
- Home riversidebooks.example/
- Browse books riversidebooks.example/browse
- Book detail riversidebooks.example/book/the-lighthouse
- Cart & checkout riversidebooks.example/cart
- Contact riversidebooks.example/contact
Fix these first
The highest-impact issues, quickest wins first. Clear these and your score climbs the fastest.
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Critical
Cart buttons have no accessible name Cart & checkoutEffort: low
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Serious
Navigation and footer text is too low-contrast Site-wide / all pagesEffort: low
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Serious
Contact and checkout fields have no labels ContactEffort: medium
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Moderate
Book cover images have no text alternative Browse booksEffort: low
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Moderate
No visible focus indicator when tabbing Site-wide / all pagesEffort: low
Findings & fixes
Grouped by page, most affected first.
Cart & checkout 1
Cart buttons have no accessible name
The Add to cart, + and − controls are icon-only buttons with no text a screen reader can announce. A blind customer using a screen reader hears only "button, button, button" and can't tell which one adds the book or changes the quantity — so they can't complete a purchase.
Site-wide / all pages 2
Navigation and footer text is too low-contrast
The grey menu and footer links sit at about 2.9:1 against white — below the 4.5:1 minimum. People with low vision, or anyone on a phone in sunlight, struggle to read them.
No visible focus indicator when tabbing
A custom stylesheet removes the browser's focus outline (outline: none) without adding one back. Keyboard users can't see which link or button they're on, so they get lost moving through the page.
Contact 1
Contact and checkout fields have no labels
Several inputs use only placeholder text as their label. Placeholders vanish once you start typing, and most screen readers don't treat them as a real label — so people don't know what to enter, and can't check what they've typed.
Browse books 1
Book cover images have no text alternative
Cover images on the browse and detail pages have empty alt text. A screen reader skips them, so a blind shopper browsing by cover gets an unlabelled list of "image, image, image".
What's already working well
15 of 20 checks passed · 75%
Screen readers & content
- The page is organized so people can jump between sections
- Content is read aloud in a sensible order
- Links make sense on their own (not just “click here”)
Forms and interactive parts
- Errors are explained in words, not just color
- Error messages say how to fix the problem
- Updates like “added to cart” are read aloud to screen-reader users
Using the site with a keyboard
- Everything can be used with a keyboard alone
- Keyboard users never get stuck in one place
- Pressing Tab moves through the page in a logical order
- A “skip to content” link lets people jump past the menu
- Buttons and links are big enough to tap easily
Color, media & display
- The page states which language it's written in
- Buttons, icons and form outlines are easy to see
- The page still works zoomed in or on a narrow phone
- The cookie / consent banner can be used by keyboard and screen reader
How this audit was conducted
This audit followed my standard 10-working-day method — the same checklist every time, so nothing is skipped. 37 of 37 best-practice checks were verified.
Want an audit like this for your site?
This is a sample. Book a free 15-minute call and I'll walk you through what a real audit of your site would cover.