Five organisations can all say they are committed to accessibility. The statement does not tell you whether their forms work with a keyboard, their content makes sense through a screen reader, or newly published pages are introducing fresh barriers. The machinery behind the statement does.
DDSN combines accessibility scanning, expert review, hands-on repair, author support and documented reporting. The result is a website accessibility program your team can see, govern and keep improving.
Work with us
Compare DDSN accessibility plans for scanning, remediation, WCAG 2.2 reporting, author training, content assurance, forms, tables and graphics.
Keep your digital platform useful, secure and improving with a planned DDSN support program covering development, optimisation, reporting and training.
Practical guidance on WCAG 2.2, accessibility audits, accessible content, PDFs, statements and ongoing website accessibility assurance.
Why do accessibility efforts stall?
Most organisations do not lack good intent. They lack a repair loop.
An audit identifies problems but does not remove them
A point-in-time accessibility audit can be valuable, but a long defect register is not the same as an accessible website. Unless issues are assigned, prioritised, repaired, retested and closed, the report becomes evidence of work still waiting to happen.
Publishing moves faster than remediation
Websites change every week. A campaign page, image, form, table or heading can introduce a barrier after the last audit. If accessibility sits outside the publishing workflow, content teams can create issues faster than a technical team can resolve them.
Documents fall between teams
PDFs, Word documents, spreadsheets and annual reports are often among the least accessible material an organisation publishes. Yet responsibility can be unclear: the website team hosts them, communications prepares them, and an external designer may have produced them.
Accessibility stalls when nobody owns the whole cycle. DDSN makes the cycle visible and gives each part an owner.
What does engineered accessibility look like?
Engineered accessibility is repeatable. It uses a defined standard, a known scope, visible evidence and a repair process that continues after the first audit.
1. Scan and establish the baseline
We combine professional scanning tools, including Silktide and Semrush where appropriate, with expert checks that automated tools cannot complete. The initial report records the current position, affected templates and content, severity, ownership and recommended action.
2. Prioritise by impact and reach
We address blockers and repeated template-level faults first. Fixing one component that appears on 2,000 pages is usually more valuable than treating 2,000 instances as unrelated content defects.
3. Repair and retest
DDSN developers, designers and content specialists repair issues within the CMS, front-end components and page content. Each material change is retested before it is closed.
4. Report and prevent recurrence
Your team can see the dashboard and the work behind it. We provide quarterly progress reports, a major annual review, pre-publication content review where included, and author checklists tailored to your website and CMS.
Automated scans are useful, but they cannot prove WCAG conformance by themselves. Many success criteria require human judgement, keyboard testing, assistive-technology testing or an understanding of what the content is meant to communicate. Our assurance process uses automation to find and track faults, not to replace expert review.
What does the service include?
- An initial website accessibility assessment and prioritised remediation plan
- Access to agreed scanning dashboards
- Hands-on repair of in-scope website issues
- Quarterly reporting and a major annual review
- Pre-publication content review where included in the plan
- A website-specific accessibility authoring checklist
- Training for authors, designers and document producers
- A defensible record of issues found, actions taken and work still planned
Our accessibility and content assurance plans compare the available levels of monitoring, remediation, training and content support.
How fast can a website reach WCAG 2.2 Level AA?
For a website accepted into the program after initial assessment, DDSN commits to bringing the agreed website scope to WCAG 2.2 Level AA within four months.
The initial assessment confirms the pages, templates, components and integrations in scope; the access DDSN will need; and whether remediation is practical on the current platform. If an inaccessible platform or third-party system prevents conformance, we will say so before the commitment begins.
What the four-month scope includes
- Public website pages included in the agreed crawl and content inventory
- In-scope templates and reusable front-end components
- Content and code DDSN can change with the access provided
- Testing, repair, retesting and reporting against WCAG 2.2 Level AA
What it does not include
- Remediation of PDF, Word, Excel or other downloadable document libraries
- Third-party applications, embedded tools or platforms DDSN cannot modify
- Replacement of a CMS, design system or integration that cannot produce accessible output
- New features, major redevelopment or brand changes outside the agreed remediation scope
We can inventory and assess excluded material, train the people who produce it, and quote document remediation or redevelopment separately. Boundaries are recorded in the plan and reflected in any accessibility statement, so the public claim does not run ahead of the evidence.
Is your brand accessible before a project starts?
A website can only be as accessible as the design choices it permits. If brand colours have not been tested as foreground and background pairs, every new component becomes another contrast decision and every author can make it differently.
DDSN creates a contrast-verified palette for digital use. We document approved colour pairings and their measured ratios, including combinations suitable for normal text, large text and user-interface elements. We then apply those decisions to components, templates and authoring controls.
The aim is not to declare that every brand colour is accessible. Colour contrast depends on the specific pairing, text size and use. The aim is to make compliant choices the default, limit unsafe combinations and give designers and authors a reference they can use without retesting the brand from first principles each time.
Can your team keep the website accessible?
Technical remediation creates a sound baseline. Your publishing practice determines how long it lasts.
DDSN provides accessibility awareness training for leaders and project teams, practical CMS authoring training, and accessible document production workshops. Training can cover headings, link text, alternative text, tables, graphs, video, forms, colour use, document structure and pre-publication checks using the tools available to your team.
Our guidance and testing are aligned to WCAG 2.2, the current W3C Recommendation as at August 2026. The Australian Government Web Content Management Standard requires WCAG 2.2 Level AA, and government guidance calls for automated testing to be combined with expert and user testing.
For ongoing development, platform maintenance and broader optimisation, see our continuous improvement and support service.
How does DDSN prove the work?
Government and education buyers need more than a scanner score. Our approach is structured for tender and governance scrutiny: a defined standard, explicit scope, prioritised findings, named responsibilities, remediation records, retesting and periodic reporting.
Preserving accessibility through migration
Accessibility work can be lost during a CMS migration if content is treated as undifferentiated page copy. For The Gordon, accessibility metadata and alternative text were treated as structured requirements to preserve through the build and migration process.
Checking content at scale
During Hearing Australia's accelerated migration, DDSN rebuilt 297 pages into structured Page Builder content and audited 617 source URLs. Metadata and alternative text were verified, and every migrated page was saved for human review before publication. That is what accessibility engineering looks like at scale: automated assistance, explicit checks and a human decision before release.
Evidence your organisation can use
Quarterly reports show movement, recurring fault categories and unresolved risks. The annual review tests whether improvements have held and resets priorities for the next period. Your accessibility statement can then point to a real process, not a promise made once and left unmeasured.
Website accessibility FAQ
WCAG 2.2 is the current version of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines published by the World Wide Web Consortium. It defines testable success criteria for making web content more perceivable, operable, understandable and robust. The standard and level relevant to your organisation should be confirmed against your sector, jurisdiction, contracts and procurement obligations.
Cost depends on the size of the website, the number of unique templates and components, the complexity of forms and transactions, and the mix of automated and manual testing required. DDSN begins with enough discovery to define the scope and provide a clear quotation. You can request a sample report to see the depth of evidence before commissioning the work.
No. The commitment applies to the agreed website scope and excludes downloadable document libraries. DDSN can inventory documents, report their risks, train document producers, convert suitable material to HTML, or quote remediation separately.
An accessibility statement is useful when it accurately describes the standard targeted, the testing performed, known limitations, alternatives and a way for users to report a problem. Without current testing and a repair process, it is evidence of intent rather than evidence of accessibility.
No. Automated tools can efficiently find many code and content faults, but they cannot determine every WCAG success criterion or understand every user journey. Reliable assurance combines automated scanning with expert review, keyboard testing, assistive-technology checks and, where appropriate, testing with people who use those technologies.
Put evidence behind your accessibility commitment
Start with a clear picture of the website you have now, the barriers that matter most and the work required to reach WCAG 2.2 Level AA.
Request a sample accessibility report