So far you've been working on developing knowledge and skills to get you started doing professional web accessibility audits. In this session we will conduct an informal web accessibility review.

Informal reviews are intended primarily to raise the awareness of readers that there are accessibility issues on their website. They are not intended to go into any great detail, but rather to provide enough information to encourage a more thorough General Review, Template Review, or Detailed Review. Ourselves, we generally use informal reviews during first contact with a new client or with a new review project, often included with the project quote. We also use them internally with our developers, who just need to know where the issues are, already knowing how to fix them.

Informal reviews are generally provided free of charge, so if you are conducting reviews as a business service, you should consider the amount of time that goes into the informal review, and whether that can be recovered through a subsequent formal review. Also consider that if too much detail is provided, the potential client may not need a formal review. The takeaway, don’t overdo it with an informal review. See the sample informal review to understand what, and how much information to provide in your own informal review.

If in real life providing third party accessibility services is not your aim, such as providing a review for your own company, then by all means include as much detail as is needed. You might even skip the informal review and jump right to the more formal, more detailed approach. But, for the activity this session, keep it short, with just enough information to encourage your client to ask for more.