Web Accessibility Resources and Tools: Guidelines, Checklists, and Testing Solutions

A reference list of web accessibility tools, guidelines, and articles. Starred items (⭐️) are good starting points if you're new to accessibility or just want to focus on the essentials.

Checklist

⭐️ The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG): A detailed checklist based on WCAG 2.2, providing guidelines for creating accessible web content.

Guidance

Community resources

The A11Y Project is a community hub for practical accessibility resources.

⭐️ The A11Y Project: A community-driven resource that makes accessibility easier to understand and apply.
A11y Coffee: Practical tips and advice for web accessibility.
Inclusive Design Principles: A concise set of principles for designing inclusively.
The Accessibility Blog (GOV.UK): Case studies and guidance from the UK Government Digital Service.

Official documentation

Mozilla's resource hub for developers tackling accessibility.

⭐️ MDN Accessibility: Mozilla's guide to web accessibility.
W3C Accessibility Standards Overview: An overview of W3C standards including WCAG, ARIA, and ATAG.
Understanding WCAG 2.0: The official documentation explaining each WCAG guideline in detail.
Web Accessibility Tutorials: Step-by-step tutorials from the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI).
ARIA in HTML: The official W3C guide to using ARIA roles and labels effectively.

Keyboard accessibility

WebAIM's guide explaining how to make sites navigable by keyboard.

⭐️ Keyboard Accessibility: A detailed walkthrough for making sites keyboard-friendly.
Keyboard (MDN): Mozilla's reference for keyboard accessibility standards.
Accessibility features in Firefox: How Firefox supports users who rely on accessibility features.

Articles and case studies

Accessibility (W3C): An overview of the standards that shape accessible web design.
Handling common accessibility problems: Mozilla's guidance on solving common accessibility issues.
⭐️ SSA 508 Test Method: The Social Security Administration's structured approach to accessibility testing.
What we found when we tested tools on the world's least-accessible webpage: GOV.UK's honest comparison of automated testing tools.
This guide is unreadable: A useful example of what poor accessibility looks like in practice.

Testing tools

No tool catches everything — automated tools typically find around 30-40% of accessibility issues. Use them alongside manual testing and keyboard navigation checks.

Browser extensions

Google Lighthouse offers audits for accessibility and site performance.

⭐️ Lighthouse: Built into Chrome DevTools. Audits accessibility, performance, SEO, and best practices.
axe DevTools: One of the most widely used accessibility testing libraries, available as a browser extension and via @axe-core/playwright for automated testing.

Microsoft's Accessibility Insights tool for detecting and fixing accessibility issues.

⭐️ Accessibility Insights: Microsoft's extension for finding and fixing accessibility issues, including a guided FastPass workflow.
ARIA DevTools (Firefox) / (Chrome): View missing ARIA labels, misused roles, and keyboard issues.
WAVE Evaluation Tool (Firefox) / (Chrome): WebAIM's browser extension for visual accessibility checks.

Contrast checkers

WebAIM's Contrast Checker makes colour contrast testing quick and simple.

⭐️ Contrast Checker: WebAIM's tool for checking text and background colour contrast ratios against WCAG thresholds.
Colour Contrast Accessibility Validator: Scans an entire page for contrast issues.

Visual testing and standalone tools

WebAIM's WAVE tool highlights accessibility issues visually on the page.

⭐️ WAVE: Overlays visual indicators on the page to show accessibility issues in context.
Pa11y: Command-line tool for automated accessibility testing. Useful in CI pipelines.
HTML_CodeSniffer: Detects code-level accessibility issues.
tota11y: A JavaScript bookmarklet that visualises accessibility errors directly on the page.
Asqatasun: Open-source tool for automated accessibility auditing.

— Karl