If you are not engaging in ongoing accessibility monitoring, your website could have sneaky accessibility errors lurking quietly, even if your site has recently been tested and remediated. There may not be any visual indication of a problem and automated scanners may not always detect a problem.

Creating an accessible website is not a “once and done” process. I recently encountered a situation where one small plugin update quietly introduced a new accessibility error without any visible change on a website form that had already been remediated.

My process for monthly accessibility monitoring includes manual testing in addition to full site scanning with two different tools. I use two different scanning tools because they each find different errors. This approach ensures that I can find the largest possible number of issues.

Previously Remediated Form

In this case, one of the scans reported that several form fields did not have accessible names, meaning they didn’t have a correctly associated form label. The form label tells assistive technology users what type of information needs to be added to the field.

The error report was surprising because I had previously created custom code for this form to fix this exact issue. The plugin that creates this form did not assign unique IDs to the form fields, so there was no way to associate the form label with the field. My custom code added the missing IDs.

The Silent Plugin Update

Unexpectedly, the plugin developer finally fixed their HTML output to resolve this error. Based on the release notes, they did this to fix a different problem, but it had the side effect of fixing a long existing accessibility flaw with their tool. The release notes included one line about the change, almost as an afterthought. However, their fix broke my custom code that was meant to be a work around for their product deficiency. The combination of their fix conflicting with my custom code introduced a new accessibility barrier.

No Visual Change

On the front end, there was no visual change to the form, so it was not immediately obvious that anything had changed. And since the plugin code change was independent from the page or the associated template, the “last modified” dates for the page and template did not change. Updated “last modified” dates would have been a clear signal that there was some kind of update.

Automated Scanner Limitations

Again, I supplement manual testing with two different automated scanners because they each find different issues. Only one of the scanning tools caught this error. This discrepancy reinforces why it’s essential to use multiple tools and testing methods for ongoing accessibility monitoring.

Conclusion

This is a clear example of why ongoing accessibility monitoring is so important. Regular monitoring helps you find errors before your users do. Thorough monitoring with a combination of testing methods is the best way to find as many issues as possible. Accessibility is a process, not a milestone.