Accessibility Audits vs Automated Testing: What Leaders Need to Know

Automated accessibility testing tools are often the first step organisations take when thinking about digital accessibility. They are easy to run, often free and can highlight obvious issues quickly.

Automated testing has an important role to play in accessibility strategy. However, its role is frequently misunderstood.

For leaders responsible for compliance, risk management and service quality, it is critical to understand what automated testing can and cannot do, and why it cannot replace a comprehensive accessibility audit. Understanding this distinction helps organisations avoid false confidence and make proportionate, evidence-based decisions about accessibility investment.

What automated accessibility testing is good at

Automated accessibility testing tools are often where organisations start, and for good reason.

Most automated tools are free or low-cost, easy to run and capable of identifying some common accessibility issues at scale. As a starting point, they help teams build awareness of accessibility requirements and surface obvious problems that might otherwise go unnoticed.

Automated testing tools are particularly effective at detecting:

• Missing or invalid form labels

• Colour contrast failures

• Missing alternative text attributes

• Incorrect heading structure

• Certain ARIA misuse patterns

Because these tools can be run frequently and at scale, they are useful during build phases and as part of ongoing quality checks. They help teams catch simple issues early and reduce the chance of repeated errors.

For organisations beginning their accessibility journey, automated testing is a sensible first step. We regularly recommend starting with these free tools to build momentum and awareness before deeper investigation begins.

The hard limit of automated testing

Automated tools can only test what can be detected programmatically. It is optimistically estimated that scanners can catch up to 30% of accessibility issues, but in practice the figure is often closer to 10% of accessibility bugs once real user experience is considered.

This creates a challenge for leaders who need to understand risk, impact and effort accurately. Decisions made without reliable evidence tend to inflate cost, delay action and undermine impact.

Most accessibility issues are contextual. They depend on meaning, interaction, intent and user experience. Automated tools cannot determine:

• Whether alternative text is meaningful or accurate

• Whether instructions make sense when read out of context

• Whether keyboard focus order is logical

• Whether error messages are understandable

• Whether a task can be completed without sight, a mouse or precise motor control

Accessibility failures often emerge from the interaction between multiple elements rather than a single missing attribute. Automated tools evaluate individual rules in isolation. They cannot understand intent, task flow or whether a user can successfully complete an end-to-end task.

As a result, automated testing tends to catch what is easiest to detect, not what has the greatest impact.

This limitation has real implications for organisational risk. The issues most likely to trigger complaints, reputational damage or exclusion from essential services are rarely the ones automated tools surface.

Accessibility audit vs automated testing at a glance

Aspect	Automated accessibility testing	Accessibility audit
Coverage	Identifies 10-30% of issues	Identifies the full range of barriers that affect real users
Issue type	Rule-based, code-level issues	Contextual, interaction, content and usability issues
User experience	Does not assess lived experience	Evaluates real user flows and task completion
Prioritisation	Limited or generic	Clear prioritisation based on impact and risk
Decision support	Technical signals only	Evidence to support leadership decision-making
Risk confidence	Can create false confidence	Provides clarity on real compliance and service risk
Role in strategy	Ongoing quality and hygiene checks	Strategic assessment and planning tool

For many organisations, the question is not whether to use automated testing or an audit. It is how to use each appropriately and at the right stage.

What accessibility audits do differently

An accessibility audit goes beyond surface-level checks. It evaluates how real people experience your digital services.

A credible audit combines automated testing with manual review and assistive technology testing. This allows auditors to assess:

• Real user flows and task completion

• Content clarity and structure

• Interaction patterns and state changes

• Keyboard and screen reader behaviour

• The cumulative impact of multiple small issues

This approach surfaces the issues that automated tools miss and, crucially, explains why they matter.

For leaders, this distinction is critical. Automated testing can indicate that something is technically wrong. An audit tells you whether people can actually use your services and what that means for compliance, risk exposure and service delivery.

Why relying on automated testing alone creates false confidence

One of the biggest risks of automated testing is not what it misses, but the confidence it creates.

A clean automated report can suggest accessibility risk is low or under control, even when significant barriers remain. This is particularly dangerous in government contexts, where services are essential and public scrutiny is high.

Automated tools do not assess lived experience. They do not reflect how disabled users interact with real services. They do not provide prioritisation grounded in user impact or service criticality.

As a result, decisions based solely on automated testing are often incomplete and can leave organisations exposed to complaints, reputational damage and reactive remediation work that could have been planned more effectively.

Can AI solve accessibility?

There is growing belief that AI tools will soon solve accessibility entirely. While AI can support certain aspects of accessibility work, it does not eliminate the need for audits or human judgement.

AI can assist with:

• Generating alternative text suggestions

• Flagging potential issues at scale

• Supporting content analysis

What AI cannot do reliably is understand context, intent or user experience in the way accessibility requires. It cannot determine whether content is appropriate, whether interactions make sense or whether a service is usable under real-world conditions.

This is why accessibility remains a governance and service quality issue, not a tooling problem to be solved by AI alone.

Relying on AI as a replacement for accessibility expertise risks repeating the same mistake as over-reliance on automated testing: mistaking coverage for understanding.

How automated testing fits into a responsible accessibility approach

Automated testing is most effective when used as part of a broader accessibility strategy.

For government organisations, a responsible approach typically includes:

• Using automated tools to catch basic issues early and consistently

• Conducting accessibility audits to understand real user impact and risk

• Using audit findings to prioritise remediation and inform leadership decisions

• Building internal capability so accessibility improves over time, not just at audit points

In this model, automated testing supports quality assurance, accessibility audits provide insights, and training ensures longevity.

Choosing clarity over assumptions

Accessibility decisions carry legal, reputational and human consequences. For leaders, the goal is not to tick boxes or generate reports. It is to understand risk, reach and responsibility clearly enough to act proportionately.

Automated testing alone cannot provide that clarity.

An accessibility audit offers evidence, context and prioritisation that automated tools and AI cannot replicate. It enables leaders to make informed decisions based on how services actually perform for the people who rely on them.

If you are weighing the value of an accessibility audit against automated testing tools, the right question is not which is cheaper or faster. It is which gives you the understanding you need to lead responsibly.

Not sure where to start?

If you are considering an accessibility audit but are unsure how ready your organisation is, the Accessibility Audit Readiness Checklist can help.

It outlines the key questions to consider before an audit begins and helps ensure the audit supports leadership decisions and meaningful improvement.