Accessibility issues
Manage and prioritise accessibility issues
- Last reviewed
- 14 September 2026
- Owner
- DesignOps
Find out how to track, prioritise and fix accessibility issues found through audits, testing, user feedback or complaints.
By law, you must ensure your product or service complies with accessibility regulations. Fixing accessibility issues promptly helps you meet this requirement and remove barriers for users.
Audits, internal testing, accessibility specialists, user feedback and complaints can help you identify issues.
Use the accessibility issues and statements service
Use the accessibility issues and statements service to create an accessibility statement, track accessibility issues and manage your product's accessibility statement in one place.
If you cannot use the service, you can use the guidance below.
Who should manage accessibility issues?
Everyone involved in your product or service should help resolve accessibility issues. Product and delivery managers should prioritise issues and agree timescales. Lead developers and designers should help fix them.
Share audit findings, issues and progress across the team so everyone understands what they need to do.
Track your issues
After an accessibility audit, or carrying out your own accessibility testing, record each issue and track it until someone fixes it.
This also gives you the evidence you need to keep your accessibility statement up to date.
Your tracking will need to include:
- a description of the issue
- the WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) conformance level, such as A, AA or AAA
- the date you found the issue
- the date you plan to fix it or the date you fixed it
- whether the issue is open or closed
- details of how you fixed the issue
Prioritise issues
Prioritise issues found through testing or audits. Fix those with the greatest impact on users first.
Issues that fail Level A WCAG success criteria can create significant barriers for users and pose a high risk to DfE.
Use this approach to prioritise issues.
| User impact and effort | Priority |
|---|---|
| High impact, low effort | High |
| High impact, high effort | High / medium |
| Low impact, low effort | Medium |
| Low impact, high effort | Low |
Level A issues often create the biggest barriers for users, followed by Level AA and Level AAA issues. However, this is not always the case. Consider the nature of each issue and its potential impact on users.
Consider:
- where the issue occurs in the user journey
- whether it prevents a user from continuing
- whether it affects a specific part of the service
- whether it occurs across the whole service
- how many users may be affected
If you need help prioritising issues, contact the DesignOps team.
Fix issues
Fix high-priority issues first, followed by medium- and low-priority issues. Your approach to fixing an issue will depend on what caused it.
Developers may need to change how they implemented a component to fix technical issues. A designer may need to change the design to fix issues caused by design decisions.
Some issues may require part of your product or service to be redesigned.
If you need specialist advice on how to fix an issue, contact the DesignOps team.
Record each fix, including what you changed.
Keep your audit supplier informed so you can arrange a date to retest the fixes.
Update your accessibility statement
Update your accessibility statement when you resolve issues so it reflects the current accessibility of your product or service. Fixing issues may change its WCAG conformance level.
Use the accessibility statement templates and DfE accessibility statements standards guidance.