An accessibility audit report contains everything you need to build a working dashboard: issue counts, severity levels, affected pages, and WCAG 2.1 AA or 2.2 AA criteria. The dashboard is how you turn that static document into a living project management tool your team can act on daily.
Most audit reports arrive as spreadsheets or PDFs. They are thorough, accurate, and packed with detail. But without a structured view of progress, that detail loses freshness quickly. A dashboard gives you visibility into what has been fixed, what remains, and where to focus next.
| Component | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Issue Inventory | Every issue from the audit report, categorized by WCAG criterion, severity, and page or screen |
| Status Tracking | Mark each issue as open, in progress, fixed, or validated |
| Priority View | Sort issues by Risk Factor or User Impact prioritization formulas to direct remediation effort |
| Progress Summary | Percentage of issues resolved, broken down by severity and WCAG level |
| Ownership | Assign each issue to a specific developer or team member |
What Goes Into the Dashboard?
Start with the raw data from your audit report. Each issue identified by the auditor maps to a WCAG success criterion. That mapping is the backbone of your dashboard.
For every issue, capture these fields: the specific WCAG criterion, the affected page or screen URL, the severity rating (if your auditor provided one), a description of the issue, and a recommended fix. If your report includes screenshots or code snippets, link those as reference material for the developer assigned to the fix.
Accessible.org audit reports are structured to make this extraction simple. Each issue is documented with enough context that a developer can reproduce it without guessing.
How Do You Organize Issues for Tracking?
Group issues by page or template first. A site built on reusable templates often has the same issue repeated across dozens of pages. Fixing the template fixes every instance at once. Your dashboard should reflect that. One row per unique issue per template, with a count of affected pages.
Then layer in severity. High-severity issues that block keyboard access or screen reader functionality go to the top. Low-severity issues that affect a narrow set of users or edge cases sit lower. This is where Risk Factor or User Impact prioritization comes in. The formulas help you sequence remediation so the most meaningful fixes happen first.
A practical approach is three columns for grouping: template or component, WCAG criterion, and priority tier. Everything else is metadata that supports the fix.
Choosing the Right Tool
You can build a dashboard in a spreadsheet. Google Sheets or Excel with conditional formatting, dropdown status fields, and a summary tab works for small projects. Color-code by status: red for open, yellow for in progress, green for validated.
For larger projects, or teams with multiple developers working in parallel, a dedicated platform is more effective. The Accessibility Tracker Platform was designed specifically for this workflow. It ingests audit report data, applies prioritization formulas automatically, and gives every team member a live view of project status. The platform also generates progress reports on demand, which is useful when leadership or procurement contacts need updates.
If you use Jira or a similar project management tool, you can adapt it. Create a custom issue type for accessibility, add fields for WCAG criterion and severity, and build a board that mirrors your priority tiers. The tradeoff is that general project tools lack accessibility-specific features like conformance percentage calculations and automated VPAT generation from tracked data.
Tracking Remediation Progress
Every issue in your dashboard needs a status lifecycle. At minimum: open, in progress, fixed, and validated. The distinction between “fixed” and “validated” matters. A developer marks an issue fixed when the code change is deployed. An auditor marks it validated after evaluating the fix against the WCAG criterion. Without that validation step, you risk closing issues prematurely.
Your progress summary should update automatically as statuses change. A clean dashboard shows total issues, percentage resolved, and percentage validated. Break this down by severity tier so you can report that all critical issues are closed even if lower-priority items remain in the queue.
Keeping the Dashboard Current
Audit reports capture a snapshot. Your digital asset changes after the audit. New features ship. Content gets updated. Each change can introduce new accessibility issues.
Build a process for adding new issues to the dashboard as they surface. Automated scans can feed this pipeline, though keep in mind that scans only flag approximately 25% of issues. The remaining issues require (manual) evaluation by a qualified auditor. Schedule periodic re-evaluation of key pages, especially after major releases, and add any newly identified issues to the dashboard with the same fields and priority structure.
Accessible.org recommends periodic accessibility audits conducted by experienced professionals to refresh your baseline data. Each new audit report becomes the next input for your dashboard.
Connecting Your Dashboard to Compliance Goals
If your organization needs to demonstrate ADA compliance, Section 508 conformance, or EAA compliance, the dashboard becomes your evidence trail. It shows what was identified, when it was fixed, and who validated the fix. That documentation is valuable during procurement reviews, legal inquiries, or internal reporting.
For organizations pursuing a VPAT, the dashboard feeds directly into the ACR. Each WCAG criterion in your dashboard maps to a row in the VPAT template. When all issues under a criterion are validated as resolved, that criterion can be marked as “Supports” in the ACR. The Accessibility Tracker Platform automates this mapping, but you can do it manually with a well-structured spreadsheet and a copy of the VPAT template.
Common Mistakes When Building a Dashboard
Tracking too little detail is the most frequent issue. If your dashboard only lists “image alt text” as an issue without specifying which images on which pages, developers waste time hunting for context. Pull the full detail from the audit report into each row.
The opposite problem also occurs: tracking so much metadata that the dashboard becomes unwieldy. Stick to the fields that drive decisions. WCAG criterion, page, severity, owner, status, and notes. Everything else is optional.
Another common mistake is skipping the validation step. Marking issues as complete based on developer self-assessment inflates your conformance numbers. A thorough evaluation from an independent auditor confirms the fix actually works for assistive technology users.
Do I need a dashboard if my audit report is already detailed?
Yes. A detailed audit report tells you what is wrong. A dashboard tells you what has been done about it. The report is the starting point. The dashboard is the project management layer that tracks remediation over weeks or months. Without it, teams lose visibility into progress and risk duplicating work or missing issues entirely.
Can I use the same dashboard across multiple audit cycles?
Absolutely. When a new audit report arrives, import the newly identified issues alongside any unresolved items from the previous cycle. This gives you a continuous view of your accessibility posture over time. Archive resolved issues from prior cycles to keep the active view clean.
What if my audit report does not include severity ratings?
You can apply your own prioritization. Issues that prevent users from completing core tasks (navigation, forms, authentication) rank highest. Issues that affect content comprehension rank next. Cosmetic or edge-case issues rank lowest. Accessible.org audit reports include severity context, and the Accessibility Tracker Platform applies Risk Factor and User Impact formulas automatically when severity data is present.
An accessibility dashboard turns a one-time audit report into an ongoing management tool. The report tells you where you stand. The dashboard shows you how far you have come and what remains.
Contact Accessible.org to discuss your accessibility audit or project management needs.
