A 5-minute WCAG check any developer can run (no audit budget needed)
“We’ll do an accessibility audit later” is one of those things teams say and never do. Audits feel expensive, slow, and like someone else’s job.
But you don’t need a formal audit to catch the failures that matter most. A huge share of real-world accessibility problems come down to a short list of issues — and you can check for them yourself in about five minutes.
Here’s the checklist.
1. Tab through the whole page (2 minutes)
Put your mouse down. Press Tab repeatedly from the top of the page. Ask three questions:
- Can you reach everything interactive? Every link, button, and field should be focusable.
- Is there a visible focus indicator? You should always be able to see where you are. If the outline is gone, that’s a failure.
- Does the order make sense? Focus should move in roughly the same order you read. If it jumps around, you probably have a positive
tabindexsomewhere.
This single exercise catches more issues than any other.
2. Check your interactive elements have names
Every button and link needs an accessible name — visible text, aria-label, or aria-labelledby. The usual offenders are icon-only buttons: the menu toggle, the close button, the search icon. To a screen reader, a nameless button is just “button”. Give it a name.
3. Check contrast on your “subtle” text
Light-gray captions, placeholder text, disabled-looking labels. Body text needs a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 against its background (3:1 for large text). If you have to squint, so does everyone else.
4. Check your images and headings
- Images: informational images need
alttext. Decorative ones needalt=""(empty, not missing) so screen readers skip them. - Headings: they should form a logical outline —
h1→h2→h3, no skipping levels to get a font size. Headings are structure, not styling.
5. Check the basics in the markup
- Does
<html>have alangattribute? - Do form inputs have associated
<label>s? - Are links that look like links actually
<a href>, and buttons actually<button>?
You just did 80% of an audit
That’s it. Five minutes, no budget, no consultant. You won’t catch everything — a full audit still has its place — but you’ll catch the failures that block real users and trigger most complaints.
If you’d rather not do it by hand, that’s exactly what PxGuard’s accessibility tools and AI scan automate: tab order, accessible names, headings, alt text — flagged on the page, with the fix spelled out.
But honestly? Even the manual version beats “we’ll do it later.” Run the five-minute check today.
See it on your own pages
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