Prioritising accessibility issues in projects

Once you've run some accessibility checks in the project lifecycle, you need to prioritise the issues detected. 

Accessibility issues are barriers that prevent someone from accessing something. We can also call them a barrier created when a user's accessibility needs are not met.

Issues should not be defined by the effort to fix them, or how much they will cost. They should be determined by the size of the barrier, based on the impact on users.

The highest barriers are issues that prevent one or more groups from being able to use the product as intended. The highest barriers prevent a user from completing a task and make it impossible for them to be successful. The user will therefore have to abandon their task, which effectively locks them out as a user.

Medium and low issues are those which would make the task tedious or annoying to use. They would fail to meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) but don't create a barrier to use.

Examples of barriers and where they sit on the scale are:

• issues that are critical mean people will not be able to access content – such issues must be fixed immediately
• an issue that would prevent one or more disability groups from being able to use the service as intended is critical and should be classified as a high issue
• an issue that would cause one or more disability groups significant difficulty using the site as intended should be ranked as medium
• an issue that would cause one or more disability groups some inconvenience when using the site as intended should be ranked as low

How to prioritise accessibility issues

It's important to prioritise your accessibility issues so you can tackle those that have a direct impact on someone from using your service. For example, you should optimise accessibility on login, registration, form completion, contact and feedback surveys.

We can categorise issues based on the level of impact on disabled users as the following:

• high impact – an issue which would prevent one or more disability groups from being able to use the site or service as intended
• medium impact – an issue which would cause one or more disability groups significant difficulty using the service as intended
• low impact – an issue which would cause one or more disability groups some inconvenience when using the service as intended

How to report accessibility issues

It's important to report and share your findings with the project team throughout a project's lifecycle. You can report issues using a project teams management solution such as Jira or in a PowerPoint slide deck or Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. An efficient and clear way of reporting your findings is to include:

• date of checks
• scope of review
• review process - methodology and validation tools used
• results

The report helps your team understand and have visibility of the issues and what the progress is at each point of the release process or sprint.

You should also add the issues identified to your accessibility statement.

As a public sector organisation, you should publish an accessibility statement on your website or app. The statement should state how:

• accessible the website or app is
• the organisation's plans to solve any issues
• to request an alternative format like large print
• to report a problem so it can be fixed

Find out more about writing an accessibility statement.