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The accessibility rating for 5 popular websites — how did they score?

Ryan Houk
UX Collective
Published in
5 min readMay 6, 2022

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Disclaimer: I am using a free accessibility checker. I cannot say definitively that AccessibilityChecker.org is comprehensively auditing these sites with 100% accuracy. I am also only scanning the homepages of the sites.

How did the some of the most popular websites in the world score on an accessibility checker?

I ran the top websites through an accessibility checker. For the products I support at my company, I use Site Improve which does a great job of identifying accessibility issues needing fixing. However, since I couldn’t use my company account for all these sites, I’m using AccessibilityChecker.org (AC for reference in this article). I imagine these companies are fully aware of some of the accessibility deficiencies and likely have some intentional reasons for why they can’t or won’t comply with some methods and standards.

1. YouTube.com

an array of video thumbnails on youtube homepage
youtube’s accessibility score failing at 60 of 100

YouTube scored a 60/100. AC highlighted a disabled zoom functionality and missing [lang] attribute on HTML elements as the major sever outliers.

Issues with ARIA labels, lack of unique IDs, missing alt attribute on some image elements, some quirky HTML table problems and a handful of other issues make up the secondary set of problems.

2. Amazon.com

a collection of retail products on amazon homepage
amazon score of 57 out of 100

Amazon scored 57/100. Some form elements missing associated labels, users cannot freeze GIFs and other animated projects are some the priority issues.

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Written by Ryan Houk

Product designer of 15+ years — I write about tech & design.

Responses (5)

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Ryan, great job, fantastic and impressive article!

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Great (though depressing) article. Just to say though, that accessibility checkers do not (and cannot) check for cognitive accessibility. Though not an accident that the site that did well on your accessibility checker is the one that looks most…

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ScreenReaders are used by blind persons, generally, though some others do too. what about screen magnifers for perosns who are vision impaired? and, what about those with disabilities that aren't vision related - there are A LOT of people with…

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