Prepare for an audit

Delivery and product managers should budget for accessibility from the beginning of a project. This includes considering time, resource and cost.

The average cost of an external audit is around £8,000 to £10,000 but it can be more. There is no cost for an internal audit.

The size and complexity of your service will determine what type of audit you need. If you understand the potential figure early in the project, you can plan your budget for accessibility testing.

Internal and external audits both need to be planned in the same way.

Start to plan for an audit in alpha

Even though you will not need to do an audit until beta, when you're building production-quality code, you should start planning earlier.

Delivery and product managers should also consider that, when the team receives the report, the team will need time and resources to fix any issues and potentially redesign sections of your service to make sure they're accessible.

You must provide accessibility auditors with essential information to:

  • access the service
  • understand the scope of the test
  • have all the relevant data to complete the user journeys

You'll need to provide these details in advance to avoid delays in testing.

You must get an accessibility audit before your service moves into public beta.

Get help to understand what audit you need

Complete the audit requirements form (MS Form, internal only) and DesignOps will contact you to discuss your audit needs. They can also help to ensure you have all the information you need to give to an auditor to complete an accessibility audit.

How to understand the scope of your audit

Before requesting an audit, you need to work out what exactly needs to be audited.

You must audit production-quality code and not prototype code or kit.

Documenting audit requirements and reporting should be done in line with Website Accessibility Conformance Evaluation Methodology (WCAG-EM).

An accessibility statement is a legal document. The contents are informed by the findings of an accessibility audit, so it's important that audit requirements are in line with Website Accessibility Conformance Evaluation Methodology (WCAG-EM).

Information about this page
Created
6 August 2024
Last reviewed
6 August 2024
Last updated
6 August 2024
Reason this page exists
This page exists to help people understand the need, and how to get an accessibility audit, and what to do with the results.
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Issue 34