Accessibility issues
Manage and prioritise accessibility issues
- Last reviewed
- 14 September 2026
- Owner
- DesignOps
Find out how to track, prioritise and fix accessibility issues found through audits, testing, user feedback or complaints.
By law, you must ensure your product or service complies with accessibility regulations. Fixing accessibility issues promptly helps you meet this requirement and remove barriers for users.
Audits, internal testing, accessibility specialists, user feedback and complaints can help you identify issues.
Who should manage accessibility issues?
Everyone involved in your product or service should help resolve accessibility issues. Product and delivery managers should prioritise issues and agree timescales. Lead developers and designers should help fix them.
Share audit findings, issues and progress across the team so everyone understands what they need to do.
Accessibility issues and statements service
Use the new Accessibility issues and statements service to create an accessibility statement, track accessibility issues and manage your product's accessibility statement in one place.
If you cannot use the acccessibility issues and statements service, you can use the guidance below.
Track your issues
Following your accessibility audit, or carrying out your own accessibility testing, you'll need to track your issues to ensure they're followed through to being fixed.
This will also provide you with evidence, which you will need to keep your [accessibility statement](/guides/accessibility-statements up to date.
Your tracking will need to include:
- a description of the issue
- the level of conformance , such as A, AA or AAA
- the date the issue was found
- the date it is due to be fixed, or the date it was fixed
- whether the issue is open or closed
- details of the fix once the issue has been remediated
Prioritise issues
You need to prioritise issues from testing or audits need to fix the ones that have the highest impact on users first.
These are usually issues rated as level A compliant. They are usually a known blocker for users and are potentially a high level of risk to DfE.
Use this appraoch to address issues:
Consider impact and effort Impact and effort Priority High impact, low effort High High impact, high effort High / Medium Low impact, low effort Medium Low impact, high effort Low
Usually, level A issues will create the biggest barriers for users, followed by AA, and then AAA. However this is not always the case and you need to understand the issue and the potential impact it could have on a user.
Consider:
- where the issue occurs in the user journey
- whether it prevents a user from continuing
- whether it affects a specific part of the service
- whether it occurs across the whole service
- how many users may be affected
If you need help prioritising issues, contact the DesignOps team.
Fix issues
Fix the issues starting with high priority first, followed by medium, and then low. Your approach to fixing an issue will depend on what caused it.
Technical issues may need developers to change how a component has been implemented. Issues caused by design decisions may need a designer to change the design.
Some issues may require part of your product or service to be redesigned.
If you need specialist advice on how to fix an issue, contact the DesignOps team.
Keep track of issues as they are fixed, including what you did to fix them.
Contact your audit supplier as you progress so you can arrange a date to retest the fixes.
Update your accessibility statement
When issues have been resolved, update your accessibility statement to reflect the current accessibility of your product or service. This may mean the conformance level of your product or service will change. You can use the accessibiliy statement templates and DfE accessibility statements standards guidance.