Conformance Review

A conformance review is a systematic evaluation of a website or web application against a specific set of accessibility guidelines, most commonly WCAG, to determine whether and to what level the content meets the standard's success criteria. The review process involves checking each applicable success criterion and documenting whether it is satisfied, producing a conformance claim at a specific level (A, AA, or AAA for WCAG). Conformance reviews can be conducted through automated testing tools, manual expert evaluation, or a combination of both. While comprehensive, conformance reviews have been criticized for being complex and time-consuming, requiring deep knowledge of the guidelines, and for producing results that may not directly reflect the actual user experience of people with disabilities. Alternative and complementary evaluation methods include barrier walkthroughs, user testing with disabled participants, and heuristic evaluation.