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Home Blog When Should You Conduct an Accessibility Review?
Accessibility unfortunately has a habit of becoming top of mind only after something has failed.
Andy Bailey
September 2, 2026
By that point, someone has already been excluded, blocked or forced to work around a system that should have worked for them in the first place, or even complained or notified regulators of non-compliance
That is exactly the wrong time to start paying attention.
By then, the review is already overdue.
An accessibility review shows how disabled people experience your business across the full journey: digital products, physical spaces, customer service, internal tools, policies, procurement and employee experience. It should fully identify any barriers and any holes in complying with standards such as WCAG, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the European Accessibility Act or any local/regional legislation.
For blind and low-vision customers, most questions should be practical.
Can they create an account?
Read the confirmation email?
Use your app with a screen reader?
Get help without being asked to describe something they cannot see?
That is what a serious accessibility review should answer.
A good review shows where barriers exist now and where new ones are likely to appear next. It tells the business what works, what creates risk and what needs to change.
Simply put, conduct reviews regularly and always before major changes go live.
For most businesses, a full accessibility review should happen at least once a year. That gives you a baseline and keeps accessibility from being treated as a one-off audit.
But annual reviews are just the foundation, and ideally, accessibility should also be reviewed when the business makes a material change. Examples include:
Regulation is another trigger. The European Accessibility Act has changed expectations for many businesses offering products and services in the EU – including ensuring customer support is accessible for the products and services covered. In the US, the ADA continues to shape expectations around equal access, including digital access and effective communication for businesses open to the public.
A strong review should answer three questions: is something broken, why it matters and how to fix it.
You need to know whether your website, app and digital documents meet recognized standards, such as WCAG 2.2 AA. That means reviewing key pages, customer journeys, forms, documents, interactive tools and legal pages.
The audit should check structure, headings, labels, alt text, color contrast, focus order, keyboard access, form errors, captions, transcripts and screen reader support.
Automated tools help, but they aren’t enough. They catch some issues, but they won’t tell you whether the actual user experience is seamless. For blind and low-vision users, testing with screen readers, magnification tools and mobile accessibility settings will reveal what a checklist misses. A strong review should include assistive technologies such as NVDA, JAWS and Apple VoiceOver, as well as keyboard-only navigation and visible focus indicators.
Each issue should be easy to understand and easy to act on. The review should show where the barrier appears, who it affects, which standard it fails, how severe it is and what someone is prevented from doing.
Severity matters too – a broken checkout flow is not the same as a missing heading. Both may need fixing, but teams need to know what blocks access, what creates friction or frustration and what creates legal, operational or reputational risk.
Recommendations should be specific. Developers need technical guidance. Designers need direction on contrast, focus states, layouts and interaction patterns. Content teams need guidance on headings, alt text, transcripts, PDFs, emails and campaign assets.
The output should not be a static report. It should be a prioritized action plan with owners, timelines and a clear route to fixing the barriers before they repeat.
Where required, the review should also support an accessibility statement that explains the current level of compliance, known limitations and how users can report issues or request information in alternative formats.
The biggest mistake is treating accessibility as a website problem.
A customer may move from your website to your app, then to support, email, a PDF, a kiosk, a store, an event or a service desk. An employee may need to use HR software, join a video meeting, complete training, submit expenses or read internal documents.
If one step fails, access fails.
A good review looks across the full journey:
For blind and low-vision users, small details decide whether the product works: labeled buttons, logical focus order, accessible gestures, clear error messages, screen reader support and compatibility with magnification tools. A product can look polished and still be unusable.
Signage, queue systems, payment terminals, printed materials, kiosks, reception desks and staff interactions all shape whether someone can use your service.
Customer service is one of the most overlooked parts of accessibility.
Support often assumes the customer can see what the agent is asking about:
A review should ask: Can disabled customers contact you easily? Are agents trained? Do scripts assume sight? Can support teams help with visual tasks? Are AI chatbots accessible and do they understand how to interact with? Does AI hand off to a human when needed?
For many blind and low-vision customers, this is where the experience breaks.
Live video support, AI-powered assistance and accessible service tools can make a real difference. Through Be My Eyes’ Customer Accessibility Suite, businesses can give blind and low-vision customers ways to connect with trained support, use visual AI where appropriate, and get practical help without being forced through a process built around sight.
The same standard applies inside the business.
Disabled employees, including blind and low-vision employees, need access technology as well as accessible tools, meetings, documents, training, hiring processes and internal systems.
Can a blind employee use your HR platform? Submit expenses? Read a slide deck?
This isn’t an exhaustive list. Depending on the business, a review may also need to look at events, packaging, partner services, etc. The point is to understand where people actually interact with the business, then check whether those moments work for everyone.
Accessibility can’t depend on one audit, one team or one moment of attention. It has to be part of how the business works: how products are designed, how services are delivered, how tools are bought, how employees are supported and how customer feedback is handled.
A good review gives you that visibility. It shows where the business is strong, where it is exposed and where action is needed next.
This is what accessibility management is really about: turning accessibility from a reactive fix into an ongoing part of business operations.
The goal is not a perfect report. The goal is a business that is easier for more people to use.
If you’d like to further improve accessibility across your customer and employee experience, explore Be My Eyes’ business accessibility solutions here.
