Description
AccessVane checks your pages against WCAG 2.2 Level AA, tells you what is wrong in language you can act on, and repairs the problems that can be repaired safely.
It is not an accessibility overlay. Overlays load a script on top of your site and try to patch things in the visitor’s browser; they do not change your pages, which is why sites carrying one still fail scans. AccessVane changes what your server actually sends.
What it does
- Scans your pages against WCAG 2.2 Level AA using axe-core, the same open-source rule engine behind Chrome’s Lighthouse audit.
- Explains every finding in plain English — what is wrong, who it blocks, and the exact steps to fix it in WordPress, WooCommerce, Elementor or the block editor.
- Repairs what can be repaired safely — skip links, visible keyboard focus, pinch-zoom, missing image descriptions, unlabelled form fields, untitled embeds, unnamed menus, keyboard access to scrolling areas.
- Bulk alt text editor — every image missing a description on one screen, saving as you type, instead of one Media Library modal at a time.
- Accessibility statement generator — builds the statement the European Accessibility Act requires, worded honestly, as a draft page you review before publishing.
- A 16-point manual checklist for the problems no scanner can find.
The scan runs in your browser, not on your server
Each page is loaded into a hidden frame in your own admin session and tested there. Nothing about your site is sent anywhere, no external service is contacted, there is no API key, no account, and no per-scan cost. Scan as often as you like.
What this plugin will not tell you
Automated testing reliably detects roughly one third of WCAG failures. A clean scan is a good sign, not a certificate of compliance, and any plugin that tells you otherwise is misleading you. A tool can see that an image has alt text; it cannot tell whether that text is accurate. It can see that a button is focusable; it cannot tell whether pressing it does the right thing.
That is why the Manual checks screen ships with the plugin rather than being sold as an upgrade. Working through it — especially the keyboard-only test and the screen reader test — will teach you more about your site than any scan.
Every repair is optional and reversible
Nothing is switched on when you activate the plugin. Each repair is listed with what it changes and what could go wrong, you choose which to enable, and switching one off restores exactly what your theme produced before. No stored content is ever rewritten.
Credits
Accessibility testing is powered by axe-core by Deque Systems, licensed under the Mozilla Public License 2.0. The unminified source is included in assets/js/axe.js.
Screenshots
Installation
- Install and activate the plugin.
- Go to Accessibility Scan pages and scan your homepage first, then a content page, your contact page, and — if you sell online — a product page and the checkout.
- Read the findings on Accessibility Overview.
- Turn on the repairs you want under Accessibility Repairs, then look at your site.
- Work through Accessibility Manual checks.
FAQ
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Does this make my site legally compliant?
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No plugin can honestly promise that. Automated testing catches about a third of WCAG failures; the rest needs a person. AccessVane finds what a machine can find, repairs what can be repaired safely, and gives you a structured checklist for everything else. In 2025 the US Federal Trade Commission fined an accessibility vendor $1 million partly over compliance claims of exactly this kind, which is why the wording here is careful.
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I already have an accessibility widget. Do I need this?
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If you have an overlay, this plugin will show you the failures it is not fixing. Overlays patch the visitor’s browser, not your pages. In the first half of 2025, 456 US accessibility lawsuits were filed against websites that already had one installed.
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Will the repairs break my site?
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Every repair is off until you turn it on, and each one is listed with an honest note about what could go wrong. Most are invisible to sighted visitors. The two that change appearance — underlining content links and the focus outline — are marked as such. Switching a repair off removes its effect completely.
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Does it slow my site down?
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The scanner runs only in wp-admin and never on the front end. On the front end, the CSS-only repairs add well under a kilobyte inline, and the small JavaScript file loads only if you enable a repair that needs it. If you enable nothing, nothing is loaded.
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Does it send my data anywhere?
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No. There is no external service, no API key and no account. Scans run in your browser and results are stored in your own database.
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Which standard does it check?
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WCAG 2.2 Level AA, the level referenced by the European Accessibility Act, Section 508, EN 301 549 and most national accessibility rules.
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Can I scan pages that are not published?
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The scanner lists published pages and posts. To test a draft, preview it and scan the preview address, or publish it privately first.
Reviews
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Contributors & Developers
“AccessVane – Accessibility Checker and Fixer” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.
Contributors
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Interested in development?
Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.
Changelog
1.0.0
- First release.