Field guide · reference
10 most common accessibility issues
These mirror the failures found most often across the web. The WebAIM Million analysis of the top one million home pages finds a handful of failure types account for most detected errors. axe-core catches every one of these deterministically. The hard part is running it on the states behind your login.
Last reviewed 26 September 2026
Issues ranked by frequency
- 01
Missing alt text on images
Impact. Screen readers announce "image" or read the filename. A user has no idea what the image shows.
Fix. Add descriptive alt text. For decorative images, use alt="" to skip them.
- 02
Low color contrast
Impact. Users with low vision, color blindness, or bright ambient light can't read the text.
Fix. Hold 4.5:1 contrast for normal text and 3:1 for large text. Check with a devtools contrast panel.
- 03
Form inputs without labels
Impact. Screen readers say "edit text" with no context. A user doesn't know what to type.
Fix. Add a <label htmlFor> to every input. Placeholder text is not a label.
- 04
Missing document language
Impact. Screen readers apply the wrong pronunciation rules, so French text gets read with English phonetics.
Fix. Add lang="en" (or the right language) to the <html> element.
- 05
No visible keyboard focus
Impact. A keyboard user can't tell which element is focused, and navigation becomes guesswork.
Fix. Never set outline: none with nothing in its place. Style :focus-visible instead.
- 06
Broken heading hierarchy
Impact. Screen reader users navigate by headings. Skipping from h1 to h4 breaks that outline.
Fix. Use headings in order (h1, h2, h3) without skipping a level. One h1 per page.
- 07
Links with no descriptive text
Impact. Screen readers can list every link on a page. "Click here" and "Read more" carry no meaning out of context.
Fix. Write link text that describes the destination: "View pricing plans", not "Click here".
- 08
Missing skip navigation
Impact. A keyboard user must tab through the whole nav on every single page before reaching content.
Fix. Add a "Skip to main content" link as the first focusable element.
- 09
Touch targets that are too small
Impact. Users with a motor impairment, or just larger fingers, miss the intended button on mobile.
Fix. Target at least 44×44 CSS pixels for interactive elements. WCAG 2.2 requires a 24×24 minimum.
- 10
Auto-playing media
Impact. Unexpected audio disrupts a screen reader session, and unexpected motion can trigger a vestibular reaction.
Fix. Don't autoplay. If you must, give it a pause/stop control and respect prefers-reduced-motion.
Find these automatically
Personaudit runs axe-core at every state it reaches. The free CLI runs on your machine, so the CLI reaches authenticated pages a single-URL scan never sees. The hosted public-page grade needs no signup and covers public pages only.