Today a prospective client asked us a follow up question:
One quick question: Is your audit performed manually, automated, or a hybrid model?
We often get this question because other accessibility companies will attempt to cast doubt on our audit quality (insinuating it’s not fully manual) when our quote comes in significantly under theirs.
Here’s what we wrote back:
Absolutely, our audits are 100% manual.
We use several manual evaluation methodologies to ensure our report includes all accessibility issues:
- Screen reader testing
- NVDA
- VoiceOver
- JAWS and TalkBack available upon request
- Keyboard testing
- Visual inspection
- Code inspection
- Audible inspection
- Browser zoom testing (200% and 400%)
- Color contrast analysis
AXE automated scan review (as a secondary check only) is used to ensure all issues correctly flagged by a scan are included in our report, but our evaluation is fully manual and we use a scan as a secondary check.
Also, all of our auditors are certified DHS Trusted Testers. (The DHS Trusted Tester is a rigorous exam that often takes 1-2 months to complete.)
You can read more about our approach to audits:
Manual is the only kind of accessibility audit
High quality accessibility audits by certified DHS Trusted Testers
Accessible.org/audits (includes FAQ)
Analysis of ‘Two-Part Audit’ Combining ‘Manual Testing’ and ‘Automated Scanning’
Great question, let me know if I can provide any additional information.
Thoughts
We are the one accessibility company who continually emphasizes how essential manual evaluation is. And part of the way we do this is through education and what is possible with automated scans and now “AI scans”.
To be clear, 100% manual evaluation is what you want as a client and that’s what you get from Accessible.org.
We use a scan, not to find accessibility issues, but to review the accessibility issues we’ve identified and make absolutely sure that no issues correctly flagged by a scan are missing from our audit report.
We’re meticulous and we’re thorough.
So much so that we built our own platform (Accessibility Tracker) so that clients can track each and every issue found in their audit report. Virtually every other software or platform is based on an automated scan.
We know the importance of manual evaluation and attention to detail better than anyone and spent tens of thousands of dollars and ~ 1,000 hours over 1.5 years building a platform that tracks all issues.
We’re the kings of 100%, fully manual accessibility evaluation.
