WCAG 2.2 Demo SuiteStep 2 — Explore the website
You cannot sample what you have not seen. This step is reconnaissance: build an inventory of what the site is made of, so that Step 3 is a decision rather than a guess.
Explore as a user, not as an auditor. Do the things the site exists for. You are looking for five things.
2a. Common web pages
Pages that appear throughout, or that every user meets: the home page, the contact page, the sitemap, the accessibility statement, the login, the search results, the error pages. Also the ones nobody thinks of — the 404 page, the print stylesheet, the cookie banner, the session-timeout screen.
2b. Essential functionality
The tasks the site exists to enable. For a bookshop: search for a book, add it to a basket, check out, create an account, contact support. Every one of these must be represented in your sample, because a failure inside a task is worse than the same failure on a static page — it stops the user completing something.
2c. Types of web pages
Group pages by structure, not by topic. Twenty product pages built from one template are one page type. A page type is a distinct layout, template or component set. Typical types:
- Home / landing
- Listing with filters and pagination
- Detail page (product, article)
- Form-heavy page (checkout, application, contact)
- Authentication (login, registration, password reset)
- Data-heavy page (tables, dashboards, reports)
- Rich media page (video, audio, interactive)
- Documentation or long-form content
2d. Web technologies relied upon
Record what the site is built with, because it changes how you test:
- HTML, CSS, JavaScript — and which framework, if any
- WAI-ARIA, and how heavily it is used
- Whether it is a single-page application. If so, route changes, focus management and title updates need specific attention.
- Embedded third-party components: payment providers, maps, chat, video players, CAPTCHA, analytics overlays, cookie consent
- Documents: PDF, Word, spreadsheets
2e. Other relevant pages
The exceptions and the awkward corners — the pages that do not fit any type:
- Anything with an unusual interaction: a drag-and-drop board, a seat picker, a map, a configurator, a signature pad
- Anything with a time limit
- Anything behind a login that differs from the public equivalent
- Pages built or edited by a different team, or by a content management system with a different template set
- Old pages that predate the current design system — these are frequently the worst, and frequently excluded by accident
Where the defects concentrate
In practice, most serious findings cluster in three places: forms and checkouts, custom widgets that replace native controls, and anything embedded from a third party. If your exploration has not found those, keep looking.
Techniques for exploring quickly
- Read the sitemap and the main navigation, then ignore both and use the search — users do.
- Complete each essential task end to end, writing down every page you pass through.
- Check the page source of two pages of the same type. If the markup differs, they are different types.
- Look at analytics if you have access: the most-visited pages must be in the sample.
- Ask the team what they are worried about. They usually know.
Now explore the sample site
Work through Riverline Books and build your inventory before reading Step 3. Do not audit yet — just map what is there.