How to Find Accessibility Issues on WordPress

A homepage can look polished, pass a quick visual review, and still prevent a keyboard user from completing a form or a screen reader user from understanding a menu. Knowing how to find accessibility issues requires more than checking color contrast on a few pages. You need a repeatable process that examines code, content, documents, templates, and the publishing workflow that creates new accessibility errors over time.

For WordPress site owners, agencies, schools, and public organizations, that process should be tied to recognized requirements: WCAG 2.1, WCAG 2.2, Section 508, and, where applicable, ADA-related obligations. The goal is not simply to generate a long error list. The goal is to identify barriers, prioritize remediation, document progress, and keep inaccessible content from returning after fixes are complete.

Start With a Sitewide Accessibility Inventory

Accessibility problems rarely live in one place. A blog post may contain missing alternative text, while the theme creates heading-order errors across every page. A contact form may be inaccessible only on mobile, and a linked PDF may be unusable to a screen reader. If you begin with a single page, you can miss the source of the highest-risk issues.

Inventory the parts of the site that visitors and editors actually use. This includes primary templates, posts and pages, custom post types, navigation menus, widgets, forms, search results, media libraries, downloadable documents, embedded third-party tools, and account or checkout flows. Include old content that still appears in search results or receives traffic. Archived pages can create the same access barrier and compliance exposure as new ones.

For larger sites, group pages by template and function. Reviewing one representative page from each template can reveal recurring theme-level defects, while a full scan identifies page-specific content errors. Both are necessary. Template sampling alone will not find inaccessible PDFs or editor-added links, and page-by-page review alone can waste time rediscovering the same faulty component.

How to Find Accessibility Issues With Automated Scans

An automated accessibility scan is the fastest way to establish a baseline. It can evaluate large volumes of WordPress content consistently and flag detectable failures such as missing form labels, empty links, low contrast, missing language declarations, heading problems, duplicate IDs, and images without appropriate alternative text.

Run the scan against published pages first. Then expand coverage to include custom post types, menus, widgets, theme files, linked pages, and PDFs where your auditing tool supports them. A scan that checks only the current page in the editor may be useful for writers, but it does not provide the sitewide coverage needed to manage compliance risk.

The quality of the report matters as much as the number of checks. A useful result identifies the affected element, explains the relevant WCAG criterion, shows the code location or editing path, and distinguishes errors from warnings. Without that context, non-technical administrators may know a problem exists but still have no reliable way to correct it.

WP ADA Compliance Check is designed for this workflow inside WordPress. It scans content and site components against WCAG 2.1, WCAG 2.2, and Section 508 requirements, provides remediation guidance, and can automatically correct a defined set of error types. This allows site managers to move from detection to action without exporting every issue to a separate system.

Automation has limits. A scanner can detect that an image has alternative text, but it cannot always determine whether the text conveys the image’s purpose. It may confirm that headings exist, but not whether the heading structure accurately communicates the page hierarchy. Treat automated results as a high-coverage first pass, not as a final compliance determination.

Test the Barriers Automation Cannot Judge

Manual testing is where teams find the problems that affect real use but require human judgment. It should focus first on the most consequential visitor tasks: finding information, navigating primary sections, submitting a form, making a payment, registering for an event, downloading a document, or contacting the organization.

Check keyboard navigation

Use only the Tab, Shift + Tab, Enter, Space, and arrow keys. Every interactive control should receive a visible focus indicator, work in a logical order, and provide a way to leave menus, pop-ups, and embedded widgets. Watch for keyboard traps, especially in modal dialogs, sliders, cookie banners, chat tools, and calendar interfaces.

A common WordPress issue is a theme or page builder that removes the browser’s default focus outline for visual styling. That decision can make links and controls effectively invisible to keyboard users. Another frequent problem is a navigation menu that opens on hover but cannot be expanded or collapsed with a keyboard.

Review content structure and meaning

Read each page as a document, not as a visual layout. Headings should reflect hierarchy, beginning with a clear page topic and moving through logical levels. Do not use heading tags solely to make text larger. Use styles for presentation and headings for structure.

Check link text in context. “Read more,” “click here,” and repeated “learn more” links can be unclear when screen reader users navigate a list of links. Replace vague text with language that identifies the destination or action. Also review tables, lists, accordions, tabs, and alert messages. These components need semantic markup and accessible names, states, and relationships to communicate correctly to assistive technology.

Use a screen reader for critical flows

Screen reader testing does not require reviewing every sentence on every page at the start. Begin with high-value journeys and recurring components. Listen for the page title, heading structure, navigation labels, form instructions, error messages, button names, and status updates after an action.

If a form fails validation, the user must be told what went wrong and how to correct it. A red border by itself is not enough. Required fields, input purpose, error summaries, and confirmation messages must be available in text and announced in a usable way.

Review PDFs, Media, and Embedded Content

Many organizations focus on HTML pages while overlooking documents and embedded services. That creates a major gap, particularly for government, education, healthcare, and organizations that publish applications, policies, meeting materials, course resources, or public notices as PDFs.

Review downloadable documents for selectable text, proper reading order, headings, document language, tagged tables, descriptive links, and alternative text for meaningful images. A scanned document that is only an image is generally inaccessible unless it has been processed and properly tagged. If a document is not necessary, converting its information into an accessible web page may be the more maintainable option.

For video, verify captions are accurate and synchronized. Audio-only material needs a transcript. Visual information that is essential to understanding the content may need audio description or an equivalent alternative. Embedded maps, appointment tools, social feeds, payment processors, and chat widgets also require review because the accessibility of your site is affected by experiences delivered through it.

Prioritize Fixes by User Impact and Scope

A scan can produce hundreds of findings. Do not let volume force a purely numerical approach. A single inaccessible navigation menu can affect every visitor on every page, while one missing alternative text attribute may affect only a single image. Fix sitewide barriers and blocked user journeys first.

A practical remediation order is to address keyboard access, forms, navigation, page structure, contrast, and essential documents before lower-impact editorial inconsistencies. Then resolve repeated template defects before isolated page-level errors. This order reduces risk faster because it removes barriers across the widest portion of the site.

Assign each issue to the team that can actually correct it. Developers should own theme, plugin, and custom-code defects. Content editors should own headings, links, alternative text, tables, and document quality. Compliance or project leads should track exceptions, verify completion, and decide when a third-party vendor issue requires escalation.

Build Accessibility Into Publishing Controls

One-time remediation is not enough for an active WordPress site. New posts, media uploads, page-builder changes, and plugin updates can reintroduce errors. The most effective accessibility programs move checking earlier, before content reaches the public site.

Set clear publishing requirements for editors: meaningful alternative text, logical heading structure, descriptive links, captions where needed, and accessible documents. Give them scan results in the WordPress workflow, where they can correct issues before publishing rather than after a complaint or audit. For high-risk sites, publishing controls that flag or block known accessibility errors provide stronger operational discipline.

Retest after theme updates, redesigns, form changes, and new integrations. Maintain scan reports and remediation records so your organization can show an ongoing good-faith effort to identify and correct barriers. Documentation does not replace accessibility, but it helps establish accountability and prevents completed work from being lost during staff or vendor changes.

Accessibility issues are easier to manage when detection is continuous, specific, and connected to the people who publish and maintain the site. Start with the pages and tasks your visitors rely on most, correct the barriers that block them, and make every new WordPress update part of the same compliance process.