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
Ordered by priority. Start at the top.
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.
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.
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.
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".
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.
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.