About us

The scanner looks at the most common issues that people with disabilities run into on websites:

• Screen reader compatibility (NVDA, JAWS, VoiceOver).
• Semantic HTML and correct use of ARIA labels.
• Colour contrast of text and interactive elements.
• Keyboard navigation, focus order and visible focus.
• Presence of accessibility overlays (AccessiBe, UserWay, EqualWeb, AudioEye, MaxAccess) — we flag those as a red signal.
• Quick BDTO or EAA verdict based on a few short questions.

An automated scan catches roughly 30 to 40 percent of all WCAG issues. The rest needs a manual audit, with real users and assistive technology.

Most online checkers run on an outdated rule set or parse your site in a stripped-down HTML parser. This scanner does it differently:

Real browser, not just HTML parsing

We open your site in a full Chromium browser via Playwright. JavaScript runs for real, lazy-loaded content is loaded, and components that only appear after interaction or via client-side rendering are included in the scan. Many competitors use a lightweight DOM emulator like jsdom; that misses anything rendered client-side.

axe-core 4.11

For the actual rule engine we use axe-core 4.11 by Deque Systems. At the time of writing, that's the most up-to-date open-source rule set for WCAG 2.1 and 2.2 AA. Many other tools still run older versions that don't know the newer success criteria.

Multi-page crawl, up to 10 pages

We start from the URL you provide, read your sitemap if one exists, and follow internal links up to ten pages. That gives you a broader view than the homepage alone, which is usually better maintained than deeper pages.

Impact-weighted score

The score (0 to 100) is weighted by impact: a critical finding counts heavier than a minor one. A site with 50 minor issues can score better than a site with 5 critical issues, which better reflects how users actually experience the site.

Overlay detection

Vendors like AccessiBe and UserWay sell a widget that promises to make your site accessible automatically. In practice, those widgets often create new problems: keyboard traps, screen-reader conflicts, and a false sense of safety. We recognise the known widgets and warn you explicitly.

EU hosting, no tracking

The scan runs on a server in Amsterdam (Fly.io). We set no tracking cookies and never sell data. Results are stored for at most 7 days so the report stays available at its unique link, and are then automatically deleted. Visitor analytics through Plausible, which works without cookies and without personal data.

Alongside the scanner we offer a second free tool: WCAG Radar. Drag it to your bookmarks bar once, and from then on it opens a test panel on any web page. It also works behind a login and on localhost, where an online scanner can't reach. Everything runs in your own browser; nothing is sent or stored.

The panel has three tabs, one per role. Here's what they test:

For editors

For anyone who writes and maintains content. The lens shows the alt text of every image (or flags its absence), draws out the heading structure and warns when a level is skipped, and highlights vague link text like "read more". It also checks sensory references ("click on the right"), the page language, list and table markup, form field labels, iframe titles and the page title. One click strips all styling so you see the raw order in which a screen reader announces the page. And two colour pickers let you measure the contrast of text on a photo or gradient.

For designers

Text with insufficient contrast is highlighted automatically, including the measured contrast ratio. A grayscale view shows whether your design still works without colour, which matters for colour-blind visitors. The lens forces a clear focus outline so you can tab through your design, and marks click targets smaller than 24 by 24 pixels. It also increases text spacing and sets text to 200% (does anything disappear or overlap?), blurs images, and offers a ruler with guides for alignment and spacing.

For developers

The lens shows all ARIA roles and attributes and flags broken references, such as an aria-labelledby pointing to an id that doesn't exist. Every interactive element displays its accessible name: the name a screen reader announces. The tab order is numbered, with positive tabindex values marked as errors. Form error messages are checked for a link to their field via aria-describedby or aria-errormessage. And element info on hover shows each element's tag, role, accessible name and dimensions without opening the inspector.

Where the scanner gives you a broad picture of your site in one go, WCAG Radar is for day-to-day work: a quick check while you write, design or build. Check out WCAG Radar and drag it to your bookmarks bar.

WCAG Toolkit is an initiative by Proper Access, an independent digital accessibility audit firm. The tool is published by Proper Access B.V., based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands (Chamber of Commerce 95350985).

We build this tool because we believe an honest accessibility check shouldn't sit behind a paywall. No software to install, no overlays that paper over the problem, no "compliance in one click" snake oil.

Question, suggestion or found a bug? Email info@properaccess.nl or call +31 6 13 08 53 85.