What Does An Audit Cost?
What drives the price of an accessibility audit, what each package includes and how to compare quotes before you buy.
Read the audit cost guideAccessibility Glossary: 200 Web Accessibility Terms Explained In Plain English
Clear definitions of the WCAG, ARIA, ADA, Section 508 and European Accessibility Act terms you will meet in audits, VPATs and legal letters. Reviewed by our founder, an IAAP CPACC, WAS and CPWA certified specialist with 10+ years of hands-on accessibility testing.
Start Here
Turn These Terms Into A Plan
Looked up a term? These guides answer the questions people ask next. New here and not sure what you need? Book a free 30-minute call: a first conversation to understand where you stand and scope your project. Already have scan results or audit findings to go through with your developer? The $100 one-hour technical consultation is built for that.
Got An ADA Demand Letter?
What to do in the first days after a demand letter or lawsuit, and how an audit and documented fixes support your response.
Read the ADA lawsuit guideHow Remediation Works
How audit findings become code, content and design fixes, and how each fix is retested so you can show it is resolved.
Read the remediation guideAutomated Scans Vs Manual Testing
What automated accessibility testing catches, where it stops, and why a manual review with a screen reader still matters.
Read the testing guideSelling In The EU?
What the European Accessibility Act requires, who it covers and how EN 301 549 and WCAG fit together.
Read the EAA guideDo Overlays Make A Site Compliant?
Why accessibility widgets do not fix the underlying code, and what courts and the FTC have said about them.
Read the overlays guideget in touch
Know where you stand. Know what to work on next.
Tell us what you’re working on and where you need support. Our accessibility specialists can help with audits, remediation, VPAT/ACR, accessible development, and ongoing compliance.
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From Definition To Fix
Accessibility Glossary Terms Buyers Ask About Most
This accessibility glossary explains 200 terms in plain English. If you are buying an audit or answering a procurement request, start with accessibility audit, WCAG, success criterion, conformance level, VPAT, ACR, accessibility remediation, tagged PDF and accessibility roadmap. For the laws behind them, see ADA Title II, ADA Title III, Section 508, the European Accessibility Act and EN 301 549. Technical definitions follow the W3C’s WCAG 2.2 text.
Accessibility Audit
A structured review of your site against WCAG 2.2 Level AA using screen readers, the keyboard and automated scans. Our Quick Audit is $500 and a complete audit is $2,000.
Accessibility Audit ServicesVPAT And ACR
A VPAT is the ITI reporting template. Once it is filled in from real testing it becomes an Accessibility Conformance Report (ACR), which buyers and Section 508 reviewers ask for.
VPAT And ACR DocumentationAccessibility Remediation
Fixing the issues an audit finds in your code, content or CMS settings, then retesting each fix so you can show it is resolved.
Accessibility RemediationADA Demand Letter
A letter claiming your website breaks the ADA, often sent before a lawsuit. An expert audit and documented fixes are the usual first response.
ADA Lawsuit RemediationTagged PDF
A PDF with a tag tree that gives screen readers its headings, reading order, tables and alt text. PDF/UA (ISO 14289) is the standard for accessible PDFs.
Document Accessibility TestingAccessibility Roadmap
A prioritised plan for fixing issues and keeping them fixed, with owners, dates and scheduled retests after each release.
Accessibility MonitoringAll Accessibility Glossary Terms From A To Z
200 definitions covering WCAG success criteria, ARIA, assistive technology, testing tools and accessibility laws around the world. Select a term to read the full definition.
Readability Score
A calculated metric, such as the Flesch-Kincaid grade level, that estimates how difficult a piece of text is to read based on sentence length and word complexity.
Reasonable Accommodation
A reasonable accommodation is a change to a policy, practice, or environment that lets a person with a disability participate, without imposing an undue hardship on the organization providing it.
Reduced Motion (OS Setting)
An operating system setting that signals a user's preference for minimal animation, which websites can detect and honor through the prefers-reduced-motion CSS media feature.
Redundant Entry
A WCAG 2.2 success criterion (3.3.7, Level A) requiring that information a user already provided earlier in a process not be required again, unless it is essential or a security concern.
Reflow
Reflow is a WCAG requirement that content remain fully usable, without requiring horizontal scrolling, when displayed at a 400% zoom level on a standard desktop viewport width.
Refreshable Braille Notetaker
A portable assistive device with a row of mechanical pins that raise and lower to form braille characters, letting blind users read digital text by touch and often take notes.
Regression Testing (Accessibility)
Accessibility regression testing means re-checking previously fixed issues and unrelated pages after a code change, to catch cases where a new feature or update accidentally reintroduces an old barrier or creates a new one.
Rehabilitation Act Section 501
A provision of the US Rehabilitation Act requiring federal agencies to practice affirmative action and nondiscrimination in employment for people with disabilities, distinct from Section 508's technology-access rules.
Resize Text
A WCAG success criterion (1.4.4, Level AA) requiring text to remain readable and functional when resized up to 200 percent without assistive technology, without loss of content or function.
RGAA (France)
France's Référentiel Général d'Amélioration de l'Accessibilité, the official technical framework used to audit and certify the accessibility of French public and increasingly private digital services.
Robust
Robust is WCAG's fourth principle: content must be coded reliably enough that a wide variety of user agents, including current and future assistive technologies, can interpret it correctly.
Roving Tabindex
A technique for managing keyboard focus inside composite widgets like toolbars or menus, where only one item is in the Tab order at a time and arrow keys move focus between the rest.
RPwD Act (Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act)
The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 (RPwD Act) is India's core disability rights law, and its accessibility rules are the legal foundation for WCAG-based compliance requirements on Indian government and increasingly private-sector websites.
Safe Harbor Provision
A safe harbor provision, where one exists in accessibility law, is a rule that limits or removes liability for organizations that meet specific conditions, such as already conforming to a named technical standard.
Screen Magnifier
A screen magnifier is software or an operating-system feature that enlarges part or all of a screen for users with low vision, often used alongside high-contrast display settings rather than a screen reader.
Screen Reader
A screen reader is software that reads a screen's content aloud, or outputs it to a braille display, letting blind and low-vision users navigate and operate websites, apps, and documents without seeing them.
Screen Reader Testing
Manually navigating a website using a real screen reader, like NVDA, JAWS, or VoiceOver, to verify that content is announced correctly and every function is operable without sight.
Section 508
Section 508 is the U.S. federal law requiring federal agencies, and often their contractors and grant recipients, to make their electronic and information technology accessible.
Semantic HTML
Semantic HTML means using elements for their intended meaning, such as a real button for buttons and real heading tags for headings, instead of generic div and span elements styled to look the part.
Sensory Characteristics
A WCAG success criterion (1.3.3, Level A) prohibiting instructions that rely solely on shape, size, color, sound, or position to identify content or controls.
Put The Terms To Work
Not Sure Which Of These Terms Apply To Your Site?
New here? Start with a free 30-minute call to understand where you stand and scope your project. Already have scan results or audit findings to work through with your developer? Book the $100 one-hour technical consultation. Ready for findings? Start with a $500 Quick Audit or a $2,000 complete audit.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is an accessibility glossary?
An accessibility glossary is a list of the terms used in digital accessibility, from standards such as WCAG and EN 301 549 to laws, assistive technologies and testing methods, each explained in plain language. Ours has 200 terms, written and reviewed by the web accessibility experts who run our audits.
What is the difference between WCAG, the ADA and Section 508?
WCAG is the W3C’s technical standard for accessible web content. The ADA is a US civil rights law: the Department of Justice’s Title II web rule requires state and local governments to meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA by April 26, 2027 (populations of 50,000 or more) or April 26, 2028 (smaller entities and special districts). Section 508 covers US federal agencies, and its standards incorporate WCAG 2.0 Level AA. See ADA Title II, ADA Title III and Section 508 in the glossary.
What is the difference between a VPAT and an ACR?
A VPAT (Voluntary Product Accessibility Template) is the blank reporting template published by the Information Technology Industry Council. When it is completed from real testing, the result is an Accessibility Conformance Report (ACR). We write ACRs from hands-on testing through our VPAT and ACR documentation service.
What does WCAG 2.2 Level AA mean?
WCAG 2.2 became a W3C Recommendation on 5 October 2023. It adds nine success criteria to WCAG 2.1, such as Target Size (Minimum) and Accessible Authentication, and removes 4.1.1 Parsing (W3C: What’s New in WCAG 2.2). Level AA means a page meets every Level A and Level AA success criterion. It is the level most laws and contracts ask for.
How much does an accessibility audit cost?
Our packages are fixed prices: a one-hour technical consultation (audit walkthrough, developer Q&A or live issue review) is $100, a Quick Accessibility Audit is $500, and a complete audit is $2,000, including the Shopify Accessibility Audit. Remediation and VPATs are quoted after we see the findings. See accessibility audit pricing for what each package includes.
Can an automated scanner or overlay make my website compliant?
No. Automated tools cannot check every WCAG requirement, which is why the W3C’s guidance on evaluation tools says to combine them with manual review. An accessibility overlay does not fix the underlying code either; read why in accessibility overlays and ADA lawsuits. Our audits pair scans with manual testing in NVDA, JAWS, VoiceOver and the keyboard.
Who writes and reviews these glossary definitions?
Our web accessibility experts. Reviews are led by founder Mohammad Shadab Saifi, who has 10+ years in digital accessibility and holds the IAAP CPACC, WAS and CPWA certifications. If a term on your audit report is unclear, book a $100 consultation and we will walk you through it.
I am new to accessibility. Where should I start?
Read WCAG and accessibility audit first, then the guide that fits your situation: audit cost, an ADA demand letter or the European Accessibility Act. When you want to talk it through, book a free 30-minute call. It is a first conversation to understand where you stand and scope a project. If you already have scan results or audit findings to go through with your developer, the $100 one-hour technical consultation is the better fit.