audit-accessibility-at-scale

name	audit-accessibility-at-scale
category	web
description	Audit accessibility across a large digital estate using representative coverage and human evidence. Use when many pages, templates, components, journeys, documents, or teams need risk-based findings, remediation, and verification.

audit-accessibility-at-scale

When to use

• Use for portfolio, platform, or organization-wide accessibility assurance.
• Use a focused accessibility pass for one bounded page or flow.

Preconditions

• Confirm standard and version, scope, supported technology, user groups, authority, sensitive-data boundary, and remediation owners.

Procedure

1. Build a coverage inventory of domains, apps, templates, components, journeys, states, documents, traffic, and ownership.
2. Use risk-based sampling covering high use, high consequence, variation, recent change, and known complaints.
3. Record automated scan tools, versions, configuration, coverage, and limitations.
4. Perform manual testing of keyboard, focus, screen reader, zoom, contrast, reflow, motion, media, forms, and errors.
5. Include representative people with disabilities through accessible, compensated research and preserve participant evidence where appropriate.
6. Normalize findings by violated requirement, user impact, evidence, scope, recurrence, root pattern, and owner.
7. Separate component, content, template, platform, process, and one-off defects.
8. Prioritize by barrier severity and reach rather than issue count alone.
9. Create systemic fixes, interim alternatives, timelines, acceptance tests, and escalation.
10. Retest exact failures and representative consumers; monitor regression and coverage over time.

Failure plan

• Do not claim conformance from automated scans or sampled pages alone.
• Stop publishing sensitive participant details or exploit-relevant application data.
• Preserve urgent alternative access while repair continues.

Done

• A coverage report and sampling record prove what was and was not audited
• A barrier register records user impact, scope, requirement, evidence, and ownership
• Manual and participant-informed test evidence complements automation
• Remediation verification and regression monitoring are active