Accessibility checkers scan your website and flag potential issues automatically. Accessibility Tracker manages and tracks real audit results to help you reach WCAG conformance through systematic remediation.
Automated scans are free to use — and can be beneficial in getting a feel for your accessibility, but, because they’re so limited, even if you use a scan, you still need an accessibility audit (fully manual) to conclusively reach full WCAG conformance.
| Key Point | What It Means for You |
|---|---|
| Detection Coverage | Checkers find 25% of WCAG issues through automated scanning. Tracker manages 100% of issues from comprehensive manual audits. |
| Accuracy | Checkers produce false positives and miss critical issues. Tracker works from verified audit findings by accessibility experts. |
| Remediation Support | Checkers identify problems without context. Tracker provides AI-assisted fixes with code examples specific to each issue. |
| Project Management | Checkers output static reports. Tracker enables team collaboration, progress tracking, and validation workflows. |
| Compliance Documentation | Checkers offer scan scores that don’t reflect true accessibility. Tracker documents real progress toward WCAG conformance. |
The Fundamental Difference
Accessibility checkers are automated scanning tools that crawl your website looking for patterns that might indicate accessibility problems. They work like spell checkers, flagging potential issues based on programmatic rules. Popular checkers include WAVE, axe DevTools, and various browser extensions that scan pages for common accessibility issues.
Accessibility Tracker operates completely differently. Instead of scanning, it manages the results from comprehensive accessibility audits conducted by technical experts. These audits involve manual testing with screen readers, keyboard navigation evaluation, and systematic review of every WCAG success criterion. When you upload your audit spreadsheet to Tracker, you’re working with conclusive findings, not scan results that can include false positives and negatives.
Why Automated Scanning is Limited
The 25% issue flag rate for automated scanners means they can’t be used to measure or track progress to WCAG 2.1 AA conformance. Scans miss the majority of accessibility issues including:
- Whether video captions accurately convey spoken content
- If error messages provide sufficient guidance
- Whether page structure makes logical sense to screen reader users
- If interactive elements communicate their state changes
- Whether focus order follows visual reading patterns
Scanners can detect missing alt text, but they can’t evaluate whether existing alt text meaningfully describes images. They can identify color values, but they can’t assess whether color combinations work in different lighting conditions or for users with various types of color blindness.
What Real Audit Management Provides
When you upload an accessibility audit to Tracker, every issue has been verified by an expert who tested your actual interface. The audit report contains specific details about each problem:
- Exact location of the issue
- Applicable WCAG success criterion
- Code causing the problem
- Recommended fix with implementation guidance
- Users affected by the barrier
This comprehensive data enables Tracker to provide targeted assistance through its five AI tools. Each tool understands your specific issue context because it has the complete audit data, not just pattern-matching results from a scan.
Team Collaboration Differences
Accessibility checkers generate reports. That’s where they stop. You export results, maybe share a PDF, and figure out the rest yourself. There’s no system for assigning issues, tracking progress, or coordinating fixes across teams.
Some web accessibility software is built around a checker so you can assign issues and track issue status then, but the problem is you’re still working from scan results, which are limited.
Tracker transforms audit data into an active project management environment. Team members get assigned specific issues. Developers mark items as completed. Auditors validate fixes directly in the platform. Comments stay attached to issues. Progress updates happen in real-time. Everyone works from the same dashboard, eliminating spreadsheet versioning problems and email confusion.
Prioritization Capabilities
Checkers typically categorize issues as errors, warnings, or alerts based on technical severity. This classification doesn’t tell you which issues to fix first for maximum impact or risk reduction.
Tracker offers two prioritization formulas based on real-world data. The risk factor formula analyzes hundreds of website accessibility lawsuits to identify issues most frequently cited by plaintiffs’ lawyers. The user impact formula uses weighted scoring to determine which barriers most severely affect users with disabilities. You instantly know which issues deserve immediate attention based on your specific priorities.
Progress Tracking Reality
A checker might show your site has a 78% pass rate, but this metric is meaningless for compliance. No law requires a specific scan score. Laws and standards require WCAG conformance, which means addressing all success criteria, not just the ones machines can detect.
Tracker shows real progress toward conformance because it tracks actual audit findings. When your dashboard shows 85% completion, it means 85% of verified accessibility issues have been remediated and validated. This documentation matters for compliance reporting, settlement agreements, and demonstrating good faith efforts to maintain accessibility.
Cost and Time Implications
Running an accessibility checker takes minutes and costs little. But the incomplete results lead to wasted effort. Teams spend time fixing detected issues while missing the majority of barriers. They achieve high scan scores but remain non-conformant. When lawsuits arrive or compliance deadlines approach, they discover the real problems through expensive emergency audits.
Tracker requires an upfront audit investment, but the comprehensive results enable efficient remediation. The platform’s AI assistance reduces technical support hours. Clear ownership and status tracking eliminate project management overhead. Teams using Tracker can potentially reach conformance 2.5 times faster than those managing spreadsheets and scan results.
Integration with Development Workflows
Checkers integrate well with CI/CD pipelines for catching obvious issues during development. They serve as a first line of defense, similar to linting tools that catch syntax errors. This automation has value for preventing basic mistakes.
Tracker serves a different phase of accessibility work. After development, when you need to systematically achieve conformance, Tracker manages the remediation workflow. Issues get assigned based on expertise. Fixes get validated before closure. Progress reporting keeps stakeholders informed. The platform doesn’t replace development-time scanning; it manages the comprehensive remediation process that scanning can’t address.
Key Insights
The choice between an accessibility checker and Tracker isn’t really a choice at all. They serve different purposes in your accessibility program. Checkers provide quick, automated detection of obvious issues during development. Tracker manages the comprehensive remediation process required for WCAG conformance.
If your goal is catching basic errors before deployment, use a checker. If your goal is reaching and maintaining WCAG conformance, managing team remediation efforts, and documenting compliance, you need a platform like Tracker that works from real audit data.
The 25% detection limitation of checkers isn’t a technical problem to be solved. It’s an inherent limitation of automated scans. Real accessibility requires human evaluation, and Tracker provides the framework for managing those human-verified findings through to conformance.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I use both a checker and Tracker together?
Yes, many organizations use checkers during development to catch basic issues intial and Tracker to manage issues after they receive an uadit report. The checker instantly flags 10-12 issues for review, while Tracker ensures complete WCAG conformance through systematic remediation of all identified issues.
Why can’t checkers detect more than 25% of issues?
Automated tools can fully only evaluate a limited number of WCAG success criteria — even with AI. There are multiple layers to accessibility and checkers are limited mostly to surface layers that can be flagged by rule sets.
How does Tracker get complete issue coverage?
Tracker doesn’t find issues itself. It manages findings from comprehensive audits conducted by accessibility experts who manually test with assistive technologies, evaluate user experiences, and systematically review all WCAG success criteria. The audit provides 100% coverage; Tracker provides the management platform.
What if I’ve only been using checker results?
Upload a real accessibility audit to Tracker to see the complete picture of your accessibility status. The audit will identify all the issues your checker missed. Tracker will help you prioritize and systematically fix them while providing AI assistance and team collaboration features to streamline the process.
Does Tracker work with any audit format?
Tracker accepts audit reports in Excel spreadsheet format from any provider. During upload, you map column headers to Tracker’s fields. The platform extracts all issue data, recommendations, and technical details automatically, regardless of which company conducted your audit.
