Manual accessibility checks: when and why

Automated tools catch about 70% of WCAG issues. The other 30% need human judgment — and that's where manual checks come in.

Examples of what's manual

• Alt text quality — automation can flag a missing alt, but only a human can tell whether "image123.jpg" is meaningful or not.
• Reading order — does the DOM order make sense for screen readers?
• Label clarity — "Submit" vs. "Submit your application" — both pass automation, only one is helpful.
• Focus order — pressing Tab repeatedly should walk through the page in a logical sequence.

How manual checks work in HelloCivic

1. Open ADA Scanner → Manual checks.
2. Pick a site and a page. We surface candidate elements that need human review.
3. For each candidate, mark it Pass / Fail / N/A and add a note.
4. Results merge into the same per-page report as automated findings.

Best practice

Run automated scans every week and a manual review once per release. Manual checks compound — once you've labeled an element, future scans skip it unless the markup changes.