Evidence review
What to inspect before changing anything
Start with the delivered website and the real user journey. Record the current state so the team can distinguish an observed problem from an assumption and compare the same surface after deployment.
- 01Inspect landmarks, headings, lists and controls
- 02Find clickable divs and layout-only markup
- 03Compare DOM meaning with the visual interface
Implementation
A practical improvement plan
Make the smallest coherent change that solves the observed problem. Keep normal code review, accessibility, security and product checks in the loop instead of optimizing for the scan alone.
- 01Use native elements for their intended purpose
- 02Keep document structure independent of styling
- 03Add ARIA only where native semantics are insufficient
Verification
How to verify the result
Verification should test the intended outcome and the most likely regression. Use the production delivery path whenever headers, caching, rendering or third-party services affect the result.
- 01Navigate the accessibility tree
- 02Disable CSS and selected scripts
- 03Test keyboard behavior without custom handlers
Common pitfall
A shortcut to avoid
Adding ARIA roles to generic elements can reproduce only part of the behavior a native element already provides.
Further reading
Primary guidance and references
These sources provide standards, security guidance or the interpretation framework used to keep this guide bounded. Product-specific implementation still requires review in the actual codebase.