Use the Accessibility Cloud platform

Accessibility Cloud is a testing platform that allows you to identify accessibility issues on your websites. It conducts automatic accessibility tests on random pages from your site, highlights any issues and provides recommendations for solving them.

It is free to use. Accessibility Cloud runs from your browser which means you do not need to install any software.

Once you have signed up you receive weekly evaluations for your site. You provide contact details for each site owner to gain access to Accessibility Cloud. With a user account you can access your accessibility reports.

The platform can be used for continuous monitoring. It allows you to track your site’s progress over time. It will identify new issues as they arise and help your site remain compliant with accessibility standards.

The tool does not do a full audit of your site. It selects a few pages to conduct a random sample each week.

Who can use the platform

• Scottish Government directorates
• Scottish Government executive agencies
• Organisations in the Technology Assurance Framework (TAF)

If you do not fall into one of these categories there is help and guidance in the Service Manual’s accessibility section.

Reasons to sign up

The platform helps you:

• meet accessibility standards like the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2
• improve the experience for disabled people so that everyone can access your service
• take action faster by automatically highlighting accessibility issues
• build a culture of accessibility to make sure we get more things right first time

Limitations

Manual testing and testing with assistive technology (like screen readers) will still be needed. Automatic testing is not perfect and will only highlight the most common and obvious errors.

Accessibility Cloud can only audit public facing webpages. It cannot review:

• application forms
• web applications
• internal systems
• mobile applications

You can access video tutorials when you sign in to Accessibility Cloud. If you have any questions about using the platform please contact digital.accessibility@gov.scot. 

Get access to the testing platform