· updated 2026-10-07
Public institution websites must meet accessibility requirements, and conformance is published in an accessibility statement. In practice the statement often exists while the conformance does not.
Four most common failures
- Insufficient contrast. Light grey text on white does not meet the 4.5:1 requirement. It is the single most frequent issue.
- Menus that need a mouse. Dropdowns that cannot be reached with a keyboard.
- Scanned PDFs with no text layer. To a screen reader that is an empty image — and to a search engine too.
- “Read more” links. When navigating by a list of links they say nothing.
What you can check yourself
- Put the mouse aside and move through the whole page with Tab. Can you always see where you are? Are the menu and the form reachable?
- Zoom to 200%. Does text stay visible without horizontal scrolling?
- Check headings: one H1, levels in order with no skips?
- Review images: do informative ones have a meaningful text alternative?
Automated tools find roughly a third of the problems. The rest requires manual testing with a keyboard and a screen reader. We run that audit as a standalone service and draft the statement text: public sector websites.