The Accessibility Stress Test
A fixed-price review of an organization's public-facing web presence, looked at the way a civil rights enforcement investigator would look at it, drawing on a decade of exactly that work.
The problem it solves
Accessibility programs generate plenty of metrics: scan counts, audit findings, maturity scores. What they rarely answer is the question leadership actually asks. How exposed are we, and how do we compare to our peers?
Without an external check grounded in enforcement methodology, an organization can advance its maturity scores indefinitely while the public-facing experience tells a different story.
How it works
The methodology mirrors how a Section 504 or ADA Title II investigator evaluates a digital property: by whether people can actually use it, against the access Title II and Section 504 require. WCAG is a reference point, not the whole test. Rather than cataloging every technical defect, the review concentrates on what draws enforcement attention: red flags, the tasks users most commonly attempt, and high-visibility content.
It is deliberately not a full WCAG audit and not a legal determination. It is a risk read.
The review tests a representative sample of pages across your web properties by hand, including third-party platforms, embedded media, and PDFs: keyboard-only navigation, screen reader passes (VoiceOver and NVDA) across macOS and Windows, responsive checks, and code inspection. Every barrier carries two ratings, severity for user impact and priority for remediation order, plus a tag for who controls the fix, so the longest-lead vendor escalations can begin first.
What you receive
- A narrative report of key findings, the risk themes behind them, and a prioritized work plan
- A page-by-page record documenting every finding, with screenshots and the WCAG success criteria each maps to, as an evidence trail
- A qualitative, leadership-ready comparison of where you stand against named peer organizations
- A top-10 list of the highest-priority barriers, ranked for effect rather than volume
- An optional briefing for leadership
Where it fits
The Stress Test sits early in a digital accessibility maturity roadmap, after policy and governance take shape and before deeper manual audits, remediation, and tooling decisions. Run on a recurring cadence, it serves as the external check that internal scores often lack.
Engagement basics
Fixed fee, scoped per organization. Typically delivered within 30 days. Fully remote.