How to Use Automated Accessibility Scanning

Today’s blog post explores how automated accessibility scanning helps you identify usability barriers and improve the inclusivity of your website. Instead of reviewing every page manually, scanning tools provide a clear overview of issues so teams can prioritize fixes and take action efficiently.

In this guide, we use the Accessible Web RAMP platform to walk through how automated scanning can guide decision-making and help turn results into meaningful improvements. For a step-by-step walkthrough with real examples, refer to our video guide.

Video Guide

What Automated Accessibility Scanning Shows

An automated scan gives you a snapshot of your website’s accessibility health. Using the Accessible Web RAMP platform, you can aggregate data across your entire site and highlight:

Total number of issues
Severity levels such as critical, serious, and minor
Patterns across templates or components
Recently introduced problems

This approach helps you move from isolated fixes to a system-level understanding of accessibility.

Start with Severity

The Accessible Web RAMP platform groups issues by severity so you can address the most important barriers first.

Critical Issues: These issues create major barriers and often block access to content. Address these first to improve usability immediately.
Serious Issues: These issues affect usability and should follow after critical fixes.
Recommendations: These improvements enhance accessibility and help refine the overall experience.

This structure keeps your work aligned with real user needs.

Look for Patterns

Most accessibility issues come from shared elements rather than individual pages. You will often find them in:

Templates
Color contrast
Navigation and headers
Global styles such as CSS

When you identify a repeated issue, trace it back to its source. Fixing a shared component can resolve the same issue across many pages at once.

In the video guide, you can see how a single styling issue affected hundreds of pages and how one update resolved it using the Accessible Web RAMP platform.

Use Scan History

Scan history helps you understand when issues appear and why. The Accessible Web RAMP platform tracks changes over time so you can connect problems with updates to content or design.

You can use this data to:

Identify when issues were introduced
Link problems to specific releases
Catch regressions early

If errors increase after publishing new content, review your templates and workflow to prevent the issue from repeating.

Investigate Issues Directly

Automated tools show what is wrong, but you still need to review the issue in context. Using the platform’s extension and page-level insights, you can open flagged elements and examine their structure and role.

The Accessible Web RAMP platform allows you to create remediation tasks, assign them to your development team, and track progress over time.

Improve Your Accessibility Score

Work toward a high accessibility score by focusing on consistent improvements. Address critical issues first, then resolve repeated problems across templates and components. Monitor trends and refine your workflow so new content meets accessibility standards from the start.

Automated scanning becomes most effective when you use it to guide decisions, prioritize fixes, and build accessibility into your development process, especially when supported by tools like the Accessible Web RAMP platform.

Let me be your champion for inclusion. I offer tailored solutions (and self-paced courses!) to ensure your documents meet and exceed compliance expectations. For more detailed insights, tutorials, and in-depth discussions on accessibility and related topics, don’t forget to check out my YouTube channel: The Accessibility Guy on YouTube. Subscribe for regular updates!