Our simple approach to validation is we provide clients with technical support hours and they can use those hours to ask us technical questions and/or validate fixes.
So we’ll deliver their accessibility audit report and then play tennis with the client until all issues are resolved (full WCAG conformance) or the client is satisfied.
To date, we’ve always done this with an Excel spreadsheet or Google Sheet, but that’s changed since we officially released Accessibility Tracker, our brand new web app designed to streamline accessibility remediation.
Spreadsheets to Tracker
Spreadsheets have served us well for years, but they definitely have limitations:
- Emailing spreadsheets back and forth: When we’re validating using Excel, we send the audit report with added columns back and forth to the client. This is slow.
- No analytics: How many issues are resolved? How much progress has been made since last month? What percentage of the project is complete? Unless you’re an Excel wizard, this data won’t be available.
- No advanced prioritization: Sure, you can track by low, medium, and high (we don’t, but many accessibility companies do), but who is satisfied with that general level of prioritization?
- No comment logs: You can add a column for notes in a spreadsheet, but there’s not a good way to log notes on individual issues
Knowing these limitations (and others), we built Accessibility Tracker to be not just feature rich, but seamless. Everything we wanted for project efficiency, we built into our new app.
the Validation Process
When clients receive their audit report, the validation process now follows a clearer, more structured path:
- Upload: Clients upload the audit report to Accessibility Tracker (you can also be just a customer to Tracker and upload a report from any other accessibility company)
- Prioritize: Start fixing issues by lawsuit risk factor or user impact score
- Remediate: The client’s team begins fixing issues, marking them as “Completed” when done
- Validate: Our accessibility experts review the fixes and either:
- Mark the issue status as “Validated” if properly fixed
- Mark the issue status as “Needs Work” if not completely fixed
- Provide specific feedback on what still needs attention
AI Remediation Assistance
Accessibility Tracker increases the chances of successful remediation (which means less rounds of validation are needed) with 5 AI tools available for each issue:
- Simplify and explain technical requirements in plain language
- Provide code examples specific to the issue
- Explain why the issue matters for different disability types
- Offer alternative approaches to resolving the issue
- Custom AI question
These AI tools reduce the need for technical support hours while empowering your development team to learn as they work.
Documentation
As you progress through validation, Accessibility Tracker automatically builds:
- A history of all remediation efforts
- Time-stamped records
- Evidence of your commitment to accessibility
This means your fixes are logged and your progress is documented.
Summary
Accessibility Tracker makes fixing website access problems much simpler than using spreadsheets. It offers AI help, clear record-keeping, and better use of support time, helping teams meet web standards faster and with less effort.
The step-by-step process—from loading reports to checking fixes—keeps everyone on track and shows clear progress. Whether you use our reports or ones from other companies, this tool helps you manage access fixes more easily and keeps better records of your work.
