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ADA website checklist for small business

A first pass an owner can run in an afternoon: 41 tests in the order a visitor meets your site, from the menu to the footer, each with the WCAG 2.2 criteria it answers. Mark every line Pass, Fail, Not applicable or Not checked, add a note, and print the result as a dated record.

Walk your site part by part

Open your own site in another tab and run each test. Pick a word for each line and add a note on what you found. Your answers stay in this browser on this device and are never sent anywhere; print or copy the list to keep a dated record.

Lines checked

Order the list

Header and navigation (6 lines)

The first thing every visitor meets, on every page.

  • A skip link

    2.4.1 Bypass Blocks A

  • The menu works without a mouse

    On DOJ's list of example barriers

    Put the mouse away. With Tab, Shift+Tab and Enter alone, open every menu and sub-menu, reach every link in it and move on again. Nothing should need a hover, and focus should never get stuck.

    2.1.1 Keyboard A2.1.2 No Keyboard Trap A

  • You can see where you are

    Tab through the header. Every link and button shows a clear outline or change when it has focus, strong enough to see against the background.

    2.4.7 Focus Visible AA1.4.11 Non-text Contrast AA

  • A sticky header never hides focus

    If the header stays on screen as you scroll, Tab down a long page. The highlighted link should never disappear completely behind the header, a cookie banner or a chat bubble.

    2.4.11 Focus Not Obscured (Minimum) AA

  • Page titles and a steady menu

    Open five pages. Each browser tab names the page ("Book a cleaning | Smith Dental", not "Home" everywhere), and the menu sits in the same place and order on all five.

    2.4.2 Page Titled A3.2.3 Consistent Navigation AA

  • The page states its language

    Ask whoever built the site, or view the page source: the first tag should read <html lang="en"> (or your language). Without it, a screen reader may read English in the wrong accent.

    3.1.1 Language of Page A

Home page hero (4 lines)

The headline, offer and main button at the top of the home page.

  • The headline is real text

    Try to select the headline and the offer with the mouse. If they are part of a picture, they cannot be selected, enlarged cleanly or read aloud; they should be real text.

    1.4.5 Images of Text AA

  • Sliders and background video can be stopped

    A slider, ticker or background video that starts by itself and runs longer than five seconds needs a visible pause or stop button that works from the keyboard.

    2.2.2 Pause, Stop, Hide A

  • Zoom and phone width

    Zoom the browser to 200%, then to 400%. The headline and the main button stay whole and readable, nothing overlaps, and you never scroll sideways to read a line.

    1.4.4 Resize Text AA1.4.10 Reflow AA

  • Headings are real headings

    With a free headings viewer extension, check that the main headline is the page's Heading 1 and that the section titles below it are headings too, not bold text.

    1.3.1 Info and Relationships A

Images (4 lines)

Photos, logos, banners and pictures of information.

  • Pictures that inform have alt text

    On DOJ's list of example barriers

    For each photo that tells the visitor something (the team, the work, the product), the alt text says what it shows in a short sentence. File names like IMG_2041.jpg do not count.

    1.1.1 Non-text Content A

  • Decoration is skipped

    On DOJ's list of example barriers

    Dividers, background patterns and stock mood pictures that add nothing get empty alt (alt=""), so a screen reader passes over them instead of reading a file name.

    1.1.1 Non-text Content A

  • Linked images say where they go

    On DOJ's list of example barriers

    The logo and any clickable banner have alt text that names the destination, such as "Smith Dental home" or "Spring offer: 20% off whitening".

    1.1.1 Non-text Content A2.4.4 Link Purpose (In Context) A

  • No information only in a picture

    On DOJ's list of example barriers

    A price list, opening hours, a menu or a chart posted as an image also appears as text on the page, or in a full description next to it.

    1.1.1 Non-text Content A1.4.5 Images of Text AA

Forms, booking and checkout (6 lines)

Contact forms, booking widgets, sign-in and payment.

  • Every field has a label

    On DOJ's list of example barriers

    Each field has a visible label above or beside it that stays there while you type. Grey placeholder words inside the box that vanish on typing are not a label.

    3.3.2 Labels or Instructions A1.3.1 Info and Relationships A

  • Errors are said in words

    On DOJ's list of example barriers

    Send the form empty, then with a bad email. Each error names the field and says how to fix it, in text, not only with a red border.

    3.3.1 Error Identification A3.3.3 Error Suggestion AA

  • Forms finish without a mouse

    On DOJ's list of example barriers

    Fill in and send the contact form, a booking and the checkout using only the keyboard, date pickers and drop-downs included. Every page of the process counts.

    2.1.1 Keyboard A

  • Widgets from other companies

    On DOJ's list of example barriers

    Run the same keyboard and label tests on the booking, chat, payment or map widget you embed. It sits on your page, so visitors meet its barriers on your site.

    2.1.1 Keyboard A4.1.2 Name, Role, Value A

  • Autofill works

    Click into the name field and let the browser offer your saved details. Name, email, phone and address should fill in, which saves typing for people who find it hard.

    1.3.5 Identify Input Purpose AA

  • Sign-in without a memory test

    Signing in or checking out does not depend on remembering a password, retyping a code or copying squiggly letters, unless there is another way through, such as letting a password manager fill the password or pasting the code.

    3.3.8 Accessible Authentication (Minimum) AA

Everything a visitor clicks, taps or presses.

  • Links say where they go

    Read each link with the sentence around it. "Read more" five times in a row, or a bare "click here", leaves a screen reader user with a list of identical links.

    2.4.4 Link Purpose (In Context) A

  • Icon buttons have a name

    Social icons, the cart, search, the menu button and any "X" that closes something need a name a screen reader can say, such as "Search" or "Open menu". Ask your developer, or test with a screen reader.

    4.1.2 Name, Role, Value A2.4.4 Link Purpose (In Context) A

  • Targets big enough to hit

    Buttons and small links (social icons, the cart, carousel dots) are at least 24 by 24 pixels, or have enough space around them that a finger cannot hit the neighbour by mistake.

    2.5.8 Target Size (Minimum) AA

  • Every button works from the keyboard

    On DOJ's list of example barriers

    Tab to each button, tab, accordion and pop-up on the page and use it with Enter or Space. A pop-up should also close with Escape and send focus back where it was.

    2.1.1 Keyboard A4.1.2 Name, Role, Value A

Video and audio (5 lines)

Promo videos, how-to clips, podcasts and background sound.

  • Videos have accurate captions

    On DOJ's list of example barriers

    Every recorded video with speech has captions you have read through and corrected. Automatic captions left as they are do not meet the need: names, prices and trade words often come out wrong.

    1.2.2 Captions (Prerecorded) A

  • What is only shown is also said

    If a video shows something important that nobody says (a price on screen, steps done in silence), the narration covers it or a described version is offered.

    1.2.5 Audio Description (Prerecorded) AA

  • No sound that plays by itself

    Nothing plays sound on its own for more than three seconds. If it does, there is a way to pause it or turn it down, best placed first on the page so it does not drown out a screen reader.

    1.4.2 Audio Control A

  • The player works from the keyboard

    On DOJ's list of example barriers

    Tab to the video player and play, pause, change volume and turn captions on with the keyboard alone.

    2.1.1 Keyboard A

  • Audio has a transcript

    A podcast episode, voice message or audio-only clip has a text transcript on the same page or one link away.

    1.2.1 Audio-only and Video-only (Prerecorded) A

Documents and PDFs (4 lines)

Menus, price lists, brochures and forms you link as files.

  • PDFs are tagged

    Run each PDF you link (menu, price list, intake form) through the free PAC checker. It should have tags, headings and a reading order that follows the page.

    1.3.1 Info and Relationships A

  • PDFs hold real text

    On DOJ's list of example barriers

    Try to select a sentence in the PDF. A scanned page is a picture of text that a screen reader cannot read; its pictures also need alt text.

    1.1.1 Non-text Content A

  • PDF title and language

    In the PDF's document properties, the title is a real title (not "Microsoft Word - final2.docx") and the language is set.

    3.1.1 Language of Page A2.4.2 Page Titled A

  • Fillable PDFs are labelled, or have a web form

    On DOJ's list of example barriers

    A PDF form people must fill in has labelled fields that work with the keyboard. Easier still: offer the same form as a web page.

    3.3.2 Labels or Instructions A1.3.1 Info and Relationships A

Colour (4 lines)

Text, buttons and anything that uses colour to say something.

  • Text contrast

    On DOJ's list of example barriers

    Check body text, button text, light grey captions and footer text with a contrast checker: at least 4.5:1, or 3:1 for large text.

    1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum) AA

  • Text over photos

    On DOJ's list of example barriers

    Where words sit on a photo or video, check the lightest spot behind the text, not the average. Add a solid panel behind the words if any part falls short.

    1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum) AA

  • Colour is never the only signal

    On DOJ's list of example barriers

    Required fields, errors, sale prices, links inside paragraphs and "in stock" labels say so in words, an icon or an underline too, not only in red or green.

    1.4.1 Use of Color A

  • Field borders and icons are visible

    Input borders, checkboxes, focus outlines and icons that carry meaning reach at least 3:1 against what is next to them.

    1.4.11 Non-text Contrast AA

Contact details, the accessibility statement and the small print.

  • An accessibility statement

    A page linked from the footer says you are committed to accessibility, names the standard you aim for (such as WCAG 2.2 Level AA) and gives a way to contact you. Those three are W3C's minimum.

    W3C statement guidance (not a WCAG criterion)

  • A way to report a problem

    Visitors can tell you about a barrier by email and by phone, and someone reads those messages. DOJ's guidance notes that a reporting route lets owners fix problems.

    DOJ web guidance (not a WCAG criterion)

  • Help is in the same place

    Your phone number, contact link or chat sits in the same order on every page that has it, so people who need help find it where they found it last time.

    3.2.6 Consistent Help A

  • Legal pages are real pages

    1.3.1 Info and Relationships A1.4.10 Reflow AA

Line drawing of a laptop showing a checklist, one box ringed in orange

What WCAG asks

  • 1.1.1Non-text ContentA
  • 1.2.2Captions (Prerecorded)A
  • 1.4.1Use of ColorA
  • 1.4.3Contrast (Minimum)AA
  • 2.1.1KeyboardA
  • 3.3.2Labels or InstructionsA

What it checks

This checklist walks a small-business website the way a visitor meets it: the header and menu first, then the home page hero, the pictures, the forms, the buttons, any video, the PDFs you link, the colours and finally the footer. Each of the 41 lines is one test you can run in a browser, with the WCAG 2.2 success criteria it answers printed under it, so the result means something to the developer or auditor you hand it to.

It is not the full standard. One line here often answers two or three criteria, and some criteria never come up on a typical brochure, booking or shop site. For every Level A and AA criterion in spec order, use the WCAG 2.2 AA checklist. This list is the one to run first: it is shorter, it follows your pages instead of the spec, and two of its lines are not WCAG at all but things a credible site has anyway, an accessibility statement and a way to report a problem.

Why WCAG, when the page says ADA? The Department of Justice has no regulation with detailed web standards for businesses open to the public, but it applies the ADA to websites and names WCAG as helpful guidance. Our guide to what the ADA asks of a business website explains the gap and why WCAG 2.1 Level AA is the working target.

How to use the checklist

  1. Pick your pages: the home page, one page of each kind (a service, a product, a blog post), the contact form, and any booking or checkout from the first step to the confirmation.
  2. Open your site in a second tab and put the mouse to one side. Most lines start with the keyboard; the focus order checklist covers that walk stop by stop if you want more detail.
  3. Mark each line Pass, Fail, Not applicable or Not checked, and write in the note where it failed ("booking widget, date picker"). A note is what turns a Fail into a fix someone can find.
  4. For the colour lines, measure instead of guessing with the contrast check; for pictures, test a few alt texts in the alt text check; for files, run the PDF accessibility quick check.
  5. Print or copy the result. The date at the top makes it a record of what you tested and when, which is worth keeping whatever happens next.

Your answers stay on your device

The list saves your words and notes in this browser only. Nothing is sent to us or anyone else. On a shared computer, print or copy the list and then press Reset.

Why biggest risks first puts these lines on top

Switch the order to biggest risks first and the list regroups in three bands. The top band is the six barriers the Department of Justice itself uses as examples in its web guidance: poor colour contrast, colour used alone to give information, images without alt text, videos without captions, online forms people cannot fill in, and pages that only work with a mouse. They are the barriers the agency that enforces the ADA chose to explain the law with, which makes them the natural place to start.

The second band is what free automated scans catch most. WebAIM's 2026 scan of the top million home pages found detectable WCAG failures on 95.9% of them, and after low contrast, missing alt text and missing form labels, the next most common were empty links (46.3% of home pages), empty buttons (30.6%) and a missing document language (13.5%). Anyone can run a scan on your home page in a minute, so those lines come next. The third band is everything else, still part of Level AA.

The order is a way to spend your first afternoon, not a judgement that the rest can wait for ever. Meeting WCAG 2.2 Level AA takes every line here plus the rest of the 55 criteria in the full list.

What WCAG asks

The rule that makes a page-by-page walk the right shape is not a success criterion but a conformance requirement. WCAG judges whole pages and whole processes, never the parts you happened to fix:

What WCAG asks

5.2.2 Full pages: Conformance (and conformance level) is for full web page(s) only, and cannot be achieved if part of a web page is excluded.
5.2.3 Complete processes: When a web page is one of a series of web pages presenting a process (i.e., a sequence of steps that need to be completed in order to accomplish an activity), all web pages in the process conform at the specified level or better.

That is why the header and footer lines matter on every page, and why the booking widget and the payment step are on the list even when another company made them. WCAG lets a page with content from others carry a "statement of partial conformance", but that is a statement, not a pass.

A worked example

Here is what a finished first pass can look like, on an invented site for a three-chair dental practice with online booking. The owner ran all 41 lines in one afternoon.

Scroll sideways to see every column.

A first pass on an invented three-chair dental practice site
Page partLinesPassFailNot applicableWhat failed
Header and navigation6330No skip link; the sticky header covers the focused link; every tab title reads "Home"
Home page hero4220The slider turns every 4 seconds with no pause; the offer is part of the photo
Images4220Team photos have file names as alt text; opening hours are a picture
Forms, booking and checkout6231Placeholder-only labels; the booking widget's date picker needs a mouse
Buttons and links4220Six "Learn more" links; social icons have no names
Video and audio5113The welcome video runs on unedited automatic captions
Documents and PDFs4040The new-patient form is a scanned PDF
Colour4220Light grey footer text; required fields marked only in red
Footer and legal pages4220No accessibility statement; no way to report a problem

The tally reads 16 Pass, 21 Fail and 4 Not applicable. Ordered biggest risks first, 10 of the 21 fails sit in the top band: the alt text, the opening hours picture, the form labels, the booking widget twice, the captions, the scanned form twice, the grey text and the red-only required fields. That is the first week's fix list. The skip link and the tab titles are an hour of a developer's time and can go in the same visit.

What a fail usually looks like

  • A menu that opens on hover and has no way in from the keyboard, so half the site is out of reach for anyone who cannot use a mouse.
  • A contact form whose only labels are grey words inside the boxes. They vanish on typing and a screen reader may say nothing at all; our guide to accessible forms shows the fix.
  • A welcome video on automatic captions nobody read, with the practice's name spelled three ways. The caption requirements guide covers what captions must include.
  • A menu, price list or intake form that exists only as a scanned PDF: a picture of text. See how to make a PDF accessible.
  • A footer with no accessibility statement and no phone number for reporting a problem, so the first person to hit a barrier has nobody to tell.

None of these is fixed by an overlay widget pasted into the page. DOJ says a clean automated report does not necessarily mean a site is accessible, and the FTC's 2025 order bars one overlay vendor from claiming its product can make any website WCAG-compliant without evidence. Accessibility overlays explains why.

When to bring in help

An owner's pass finds most of what a visitor trips over. It does not replace testing by someone who reads the code and uses a screen reader daily, and you need that before you write "meets WCAG 2.1 Level AA" anywhere. The WCAG audit services comparison covers who does that work, and accessibility testing tools covers the scanners that keep a fixed site fixed. For a scan on a schedule across the whole site, Siteimprove alternatives sets out the monitoring platforms a smaller site can run without an enterprise contract.

To put the fails in order and retest them, follow the plan in how to make a website ADA compliant. When the fails are fixed, publish what you tested and what is still open with the accessibility statement generator. If a demand letter has already arrived, start with the demand letter response checklist instead, and read ADA website lawsuits for how those claims work.

Not legal advice

This is general information, not legal advice. For your own situation, ask a lawyer.

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