Written by IILL Editorial. Check local rules, certification needs, and the rendered UI for the target organisation.

Accessibility is not finished when an automated score turns green. A person who does not use a mouse should be able to open the menu, someone zooming the page should not lose essential content, and a person who submits an invalid form should know what to fix. This is a general website launch QA process, not legal advice or a certification decision for a particular organisation.

Turn four principles into questions

WCAG 2.2 becomes easier to use when the team turns its four principles into observable checks.

Principle Launch question Example check
Perceivable Is important information available beyond colour or an image? Alternative text, captions, contrast
Operable Can the key journey work with a keyboard or assistive technology? Focus order, skip link, menus, dialogs
Understandable Do labels and errors explain the next action? Form labels, formats, error location
Robust Can browsers and assistive technology read the structure? Semantic HTML, name, role, and state

Put the mouse down first

  1. Press Tab through the header, navigation, main content, and footer.
  2. Confirm that the current focus is visible and never disappears off-screen.
  3. Open and close menus, accordions, and dialogs with the keyboard.
  4. Check that Enter and Escape have the expected result.
  5. Add a skip link when a person would otherwise repeat a long block of navigation.

Removing the focus outline to make a design look cleaner is not a fix. Style it to fit the brand, but keep the current location and next action obvious.

Check content and structure

  • Use empty alternative text for decorative images and purposeful text for informative images.
  • Use headings for document structure, not only for visual size.
  • Make a link’s purpose clear without repeating “learn more” everywhere.
  • Do not use colour alone for required, error, or success states.
  • Zoom to 200% and check that important content remains readable without an accidental horizontal scroll.

Automated tools can find a missing alt or low contrast quickly. They cannot decide whether the alternative text fits the surrounding sentence or whether the heading order makes sense. Use the WCAG quick reference for repair criteria, not as an automatic certificate.

Complete the form’s error states

Test more than a successful submission:

  • each input has a visible label and format guidance;
  • empty, malformed, overlong, and server-error cases are distinct;
  • the error is connected to the field and explains the correction;
  • submitting, success, and failure states work with a keyboard and on mobile;
  • the primary conversion fires only after the server accepts the enquiry.

Keep form content and email addresses out of analytics parameters. Review this boundary with IILL’s landing-page GA4 guide.

Test mobile and assistive journeys

At a narrow width, check that a menu does not cover the focused control, the page does not force horizontal scrolling, and touch targets do not overlap. When possible, record a keyboard-only journey and a screen-reader check separately. A pass in one browser is not a promise about every assistive technology.

Pre-launch checklist

  • Header, menu, content, form, and footer work with the keyboard alone.
  • Focus remains visible and stays inside an open dialog until it closes.
  • Images, icons, and video have context-appropriate alternatives.
  • Heading, landmark, and link structure matches the document’s meaning.
  • Error, success, and required states do not rely on colour alone.
  • The page remains usable at 200% zoom and at a mobile width.
  • Normal, empty, format-error, and server-error form states are tested.
  • A server-confirmed success is the only primary enquiry conversion.
  • Automated and manual findings are recorded separately.
  • Any legal or certification wording has an owner review.

See how to contact IILL about website production for structure and handover, and the maintenance-scope guide for repeated checks after launch. Accessibility is an operating quality shared by planning, content, development, and QA—not a score added at the end.

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