The honest answer: a scan cannot certify your website
If you are asking, “Is my website ADA compliant?”, an automated checker can help you find some barriers, but it cannot give you a reliable yes-or-no legal answer. A scan checks the pages and patterns it can reach. It does not judge every interaction, understand every image or instruction, or determine how a person with a disability can complete a task.
The U.S. Department of Justice says the ADA applies to businesses open to the public and to state and local governments. Its web guidance explains that inaccessible online services can create barriers, and that automated checkers should be used carefully alongside manual review. That guidance does not set one detailed technical standard for every private business. Your obligations can depend on your organization and circumstances, so get qualified legal advice for a legal assessment.
What a website checker can tell you
A checker can flag code patterns that often create barriers, such as missing form labels, images without text alternatives, some contrast failures, empty buttons, or invalid accessibility attributes. It can help you see repeated issues quickly and identify pages to inspect first.
Run checks across representative page types, not only the homepage. Include a product or service page, a form, a sign-in or checkout flow, and pages with menus or dialogs. A website accessibility checker is a useful first pass; its results describe the tested pages and rules, not the whole legal status of your business.
What still needs a person
People need to assess whether alternative text communicates an image’s purpose, whether link labels make sense out of context, and whether instructions and error messages are understandable. They also need to operate the website: move through it with a keyboard, open and close menus, submit forms, and confirm that focus remains visible and predictable.
W3C explains that evaluation tools cannot determine accessibility on their own. A knowledgeable human evaluation is needed. For a fuller review, combine automated checks with keyboard testing, zoom and reflow checks, and screen reader review of important tasks. Include people with disabilities in usability testing when possible.
A practical first review
- List the tasks that matter. Include finding information, contacting you, registering, purchasing, or getting support.
- Scan representative templates. Record the page, issue, and affected component rather than relying on one overall score.
- Try every key task with a keyboard. Confirm that you can reach and operate controls, see where focus is, and escape menus or dialogs.
- Review at increased zoom. Check that text and controls remain usable and content does not require two-direction scrolling for ordinary reading.
- Test with assistive technology. Check the page structure and task flow with a screen reader; automated results cannot tell you whether the experience is understandable.
- Fix, retest, and keep a record. Note the issue, owner, fix, pages affected, and how the change was checked. Repeat after major redesigns and when shared components change.
What does a clean report mean?
A clean report means the selected automated rules did not flag a problem in the pages the scan reached. It does not show that every page, document, third-party checkout, or user journey is accessible. It also does not guarantee that your website complies with the ADA or another law.
Use the report to make a prioritized remediation plan, then verify the real experience. Start with barriers that prevent people from completing important tasks, and bring in accessibility and legal specialists when the scope or risk calls for them.