BFSG Self-Check: What Site Owners Can Test Without Tools

The W3C describes its Easy Checks as a starting point: simple checks tell you whether accessibility has been addressed on a page in even the most basic way. In the same breath it warns that the checks cover only a few issues, are designed to be quick rather than exhaustive, and that a page can pass them and still contain significant barriers (W3C Easy Checks). That limit applies to everything that follows in this article. A passed self-check is not a sign-off. A failed one, on the other hand, is a clear signal that action is needed.

Why the effort still pays off is shown by the WebAIM Million 2026. On 95.9 percent (WebAIM Million 2026) of the home pages of the top one million websites, the automated evaluation found WCAG failures. 96 percent (WebAIM Million 2026) of all detected errors fall into just six types: low text contrast, missing alternative text, missing form labels, empty links, empty buttons and a missing document language. Four of these six can be tracked down at least roughly with the checks in this article. Empty links and buttons, by contrast, only show up once a screen reader or a tool reads out the name of a control.

Official statistics show who the checks are for. At the end of 2025, just over 7.8 million (Destatis) people with severe disabilities lived in Germany, which is 9.4 percent (Destatis) of the population. In 4 percent (Destatis) of cases the disability was blindness or visual impairment, and in another 4 percent (Destatis) it was hearing loss, balance or speech disorders. The statistics only count people whose severe disability has been officially recognized. Anyone who forgot their reading glasses, can only use the keyboard because of a cast or watches a video on the train with the sound off appears in no table and benefits from the same fixes.

Put the mouse aside, reload the home page and press Tab once. On a well-built page a link such as "Skip to content" now appears. It is the first interactive element and takes you past the menu and search straight to the main content. Designers may hide it until it receives focus, as long as it then becomes clearly visible (W3C Easy Checks). A skip link is a common way to make repeated blocks bypassable, as success criterion 2.4.1 requires (W3C WCAG 2.2). Among the top one million home pages, only 17.1 percent (WebAIM Million 2026) had such a link, and one in ten of those was broken (WebAIM Million 2026), for example because its target was missing.

Then keep pressing Tab to move through the page, and Shift+Tab to go back. Every function must be operable through the keyboard, and the focus, meaning the outline or highlight on the element you have just reached, must be visible (W3C WCAG 2.2). Watch for these points:

Two of these points have their own criteria in WCAG 2.2: you must be able to move focus away from any element using the keyboard (criterion 2.1.2), and a focused element must not be entirely hidden by content on the page (criterion 2.4.11) (W3C WCAG 2.2). More on focus order, keyboard patterns and focus styling is in the article on keyboard navigation. How skip links and menus should be built is covered in the article on accessible navigation.

Alternative text is the short description that conveys the purpose of an image to people who cannot see it (W3C Easy Checks). On 53.1 percent (WebAIM Million 2026) of the home pages examined, it was missing from at least one image. For a blind visitor, a promotional image without text is a gap, and a linked logo without text is a link without a recognizable destination.

Without extra software, you get closer by switching images off. Many browsers let you block images for a website, usually through the site settings or the developer menu. Reload the page and ask yourself at every spot where an image used to be: is any information missing now? Is there text in place of a promotional banner, a price tag or an icon button that does the same job? Purely decorative images may disappear without replacement; for those the W3C explicitly calls for an empty alt attribute (W3C Easy Checks).

This check has a weakness you should know about: browsers display alternative text differently, some only when there is enough space. If a spot stays empty, note it as a suspicion, not a finding. Whether existing text is actually well written is a human judgment anyway. What good alternative text for product images, graphics and linked images looks like is covered in the article on alt text.

Headings work like a table of contents. They structure the page, and levels should not be skipped as sub-headings are created (W3C Easy Checks). For screen reader users they are the most important way to find their bearings. A survey of screen reader users with 1,539 (WebAIM Screen Reader Survey 2024) valid responses asked what they are most likely to do first to find information on a lengthy page: 71.6 percent (WebAIM Screen Reader Survey 2024) of those who answered the question named navigating through the headings.

Without a tool, start with the visible outline. Read only the large, bold lines: do they form an understandable overview on their own? Does each one describe the section below it? Then look at the code. In the page source, use Ctrl+F to search for <h1, <h2 and <h3. The main heading usually carries the top level and the following sections the levels below, and an h2 is followed by an h3, not directly by an h4 (W3C Easy Checks). The WebAIM Million found skipped levels on 41.8 percent (WebAIM Million 2026) of home pages and no headings at all on 7.5 percent (WebAIM Million 2026).

This check has a limit. The page source shows the HTML that the server delivers. Anything scripts insert later in the browser, such as filters, tabs or sections loaded on demand, is not there. A visible heading that is missing from the source is therefore a hint, not proof.

Forms are where visitors become customers, and at the same time a frequent source of errors. 51 percent (WebAIM Million 2026) of home pages had at least one input field without a proper label. Start with what you can see: is there a permanent label beside or above every field that says what to enter? A gray placeholder inside the field that disappears as you type does not replace it.

Next comes a simple move from the Easy Checks: click on the label. If the field is correctly associated with it, the cursor jumps into the field (W3C Easy Checks). If nothing happens, what is often missing is exactly the association a screen reader needs to announce the field. For checkboxes and radio buttons, the association also enlarges the clickable area, which helps people with limited dexterity (W3C Easy Checks).

Now submit the form empty, ideally using only the keyboard. If an input error is automatically detected, the field in error must be identified and the error described in text (W3C WCAG 2.2). A field with a red border and no text does not meet that. Also check whether required fields are visibly marked in advance. The W3C recommends including the word "required" in the label, because screen readers often skip an asterisk as punctuation and people with low vision easily miss it (W3C Easy Checks).

If you run a checkout, repeat the check at every step up to payment, without placing a real order. More on labels, error messages and validation rules is in the article on accessible forms.

The table sums up the eight checks. The right-hand column names the success criteria according to WCAG 2.2 that a check mainly relates to (W3C WCAG 2.2). A passed check does not mean the criterion is met; it only means that nothing obvious stands out at that spot.

After the eight checks you have a list. Sort it by impact, not by check. At the top goes everything that blocks a task, such as a form that cannot be submitted without a mouse or a cookie banner that cannot be closed with the keyboard. Next comes what makes a task harder, and last what merely gets in the way. This order helps developers or your agency more than any score.

Hand over the list with screenshots and ask for every finding to be mapped to a success criterion. Many findings share a cause in a template or component. Once the component is fixed, they disappear on every page at once. How a list of findings becomes a plan with waves and clear ownership is described in the article from audit report to remediation plan.

Repeat the self-check after every major change: a new banner, a new form, a new video, a new template. It takes little time and catches regressions before a customer complains or an authority starts asking questions.