Automated accessibility checking finds the problems that can be detected in code. A large share of real barriers are about meaning, and meaning needs a person. No tool, automated or otherwise, makes a website compliant with a law.
Short answer
Automated tools reliably find missing alt text, poor color contrast, unlabeled form fields and broken heading order. They cannot judge whether alt text describes the right thing, whether a page makes sense in reading order, or whether a control is usable. Testing with people remains necessary. Nothing here is legal advice.
The mechanical faults. An image with no alt attribute. Text that fails a contrast ratio. A form field with no label. A heading level skipped. A page with no language set. These are code facts and machines are excellent at them.
They are also common. A first automated pass on a neglected site usually returns a long list, and working through it removes real barriers for real people before any judgment is needed.
Our page on accessibility testing tools covers what the common checkers report and how their results differ from each other.
Whether alt text is correct. A tool sees that the attribute exists. It cannot see whether the description matches the photograph, and generic alt text passes every automated check while helping nobody.
Whether the page makes sense read aloud in order. Reading order is a meaning question, and a page that is visually clear can be incoherent when linearized, with no code fault to detect.
And whether something is usable. A control can be perfectly labeled and still be impossible to operate with a keyboard in practice. Our page on automated and manual testing covers the split.
Drafting alt text is the clearest case. A person still has to confirm it describes the actual image, and starting from a draft is faster than starting from an empty attribute across hundreds of images.
Explaining a finding in plain words is another. Automated reports are written in standards language, and turning a rule reference into an instruction a small business owner can act on is genuinely useful.
It can also help with reading order review by describing what a page says in sequence, which surfaces the places where the visual order and the code order have drifted apart.
This is how we split it on our own site. The mechanical half runs before anything publishes. The judgment half is a scheduled human task, because it does not fit into an automatic check at all.
Products that promise to fix accessibility with a script have a poor record, and regulators have taken action over claims made for them. Our page on accessibility overlays covers what happened and why.
The underlying problem is the same one this page describes. A script can only address what can be detected in code, and the barriers that matter most are about meaning and usability.
Treat any product claiming to make a site compliant with skepticism. That is a claim about a legal outcome, and no vendor is in a position to make it. Nothing here is legal advice.
Run an automated check and fix what it finds. That is a real improvement and it costs an afternoon. Our site check reports the mechanical faults across a whole site in one pass.
Then do the manual work that matters most: keyboard navigation, reading order, and alt text that actually describes the images. Our accessibility checklist sets out the order.
Then keep it up. Accessibility decays with every new page and every redesign, which is why a check that runs before anything publishes is worth more than an audit that happens once.
Describe what you have done rather than what you have achieved. We check every page against a set of technical criteria is a statement you can support. Our site is compliant is a claim about a law.
That distinction matters commercially as well as legally. Overstated accessibility claims have attracted regulatory action, and the safest position is to describe the work and the standard you test against.
Our page on accessibility statements covers how to write this down for visitors, including what to say about known problems you have not fixed yet. Nothing here is legal advice.
No. Automated checks find the faults that can be detected in code, which is a minority of real barriers. Reading order, keyboard usability and whether alt text describes the right thing all need a person.
As a draft, with review. A tool describing an image it cannot see produces something generic, which passes automated checks and helps nobody. A person has to confirm the text matches the actual photograph.
Their record is poor and regulators have acted over claims made for them. A script can only address code-level faults, and the barriers that matter most are about meaning and usability. Nothing here is legal advice.
Describe the work and the standard you test against rather than claiming compliance with a law. Saying that every page is checked against specific criteria is supportable. Saying a site is compliant is a legal claim no vendor can make for you.
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