How to Read Your Accessibility Report

Accessibility reports provide comprehensive and categorized details including Issue Summaries, Issue Types, Problem Elements, Problem Details, Impact, Standard, and Rules. 

The following is a list provides a detailed outline of an accessibility report and its elements.  

• Issue Summary: The Report summary provides a snapshot of the complete report overview highlighting how many total issues have been found, the number of different issue types, and the count of the different severity levels of those issues. 

• Issue Type: Provides a categorical description of the issue identified corresponding to the problem element and problem detail within the report. 
• Problem Element: Highlights the exact code where the issue is found. 

• Problem Detail: Provides a detailed description of the problem itself. For example, if the problem element is “Link Name” the report will also provide a detailed explanation of what that problem element is and why it is important. For example, the problem element “Link Name” the Problem Detail will read “Element does not have text that is visible to screen readers”

• Impact: The impact section of the report highlights the severity of the issue detected. The impact levels are as follows:
  • Minor: Considered to be a nuisance or an annoyance bug. Prioritize fixing if the fix only takes a few minutes and the developer is working on the same screen/feature at the same time, otherwise the issue should not be prioritized. Will still get in the way of compliance if not fixed.
  • Moderate: Results in some difficulty for people with disabilities but will generally not prevent them from accessing fundamental features or content. Users may be frustrated and abandon non-critical workflows. Prioritize fixing in this release if there are no higher-priority issues. Will get in the way of compliance if not fixed.
  • Serious: Results in serious barriers for people with disabilities and will partially or fully prevent them from accessing fundamental features or content. People relying on assistive technologies will experience significant frustration and may abandon essential workflows. Issues falling under this category are major problems, and remediation should be a priority.
  • Critical: Results in blocked content for people with disabilities and will prevent them from accessing fundamental features or content. This type of issue puts your organization at risk. Prioritize fixing as soon as possible, within the week if possible. Remediation should be a top priority.

• Standard: The report provides the standard by which the issue is found the standards include: 
  • WCAG 2.0 Level A
  • WCAG 2.0 Level AA
  • WCAG 2.0 Level AAA
  • WCAG 2.1 Level A
  • WCAG 2.1 Level AA
  • WCAG 2.1 Level AAA
  • Best Practice - Common accessibility best practices
  • WCAG success criterion e.g. wcag111 maps to SC 1.1.1
  • Accessibility Conformance Testing (ACT) - W3C approved Accessibility Conformance Testing rules
  • Old Section 508 rules
  • Requirement in old Section 508

• Rules: The rules map back to the standard and the specific “success criteria” or rules based on that standard. For example, WCAG 244 would refer to WCAG success criteria 2.4.4 - Link Purpose (In Context): The purpose of each link can be determined from the link text alone or from the link text together with its programmatically determined link context, except where the purpose of the link would be ambiguous to users in general. (Level A)