KENYA · GUIDE 0591 · EDITION 4.2
Website accessibility audit in Kenya: Customers and Market Demand
The buyer and the buying decision
Businesses and organizations improving user access. The offer to test is: Assess a website against an agreed accessibility scope and report evidence.
Audit agreed website pages and customer tasks, specifying review methods, assistive-technology checks, and the distinction between observed barriers and a formal compliance opinion.
Separate interest from an accepted order
Review a few representative pages and a key task.
The purpose of this test is to establish whether the buyer accepts the specified result, delivery arrangement and payment terms. An encouraging interview does not establish repeat demand. Ask what the buyer currently uses, what would make them change supplier and who has authority to approve the first order. Record a refusal as carefully as an enquiry so that unsuccessful offers do not disappear from the evidence.
Collect evidence specific to this offer
Record tested pages, browser and tool context, task failures, supporting observations, suggested remedies, and limitations preventing the findings from implying universal website accessibility.
| Question to resolve | Evidence to retain |
|---|---|
| What exactly will the buyer accept? | Ask users or reviewers to complete keyboard navigation, form submission, and content-reading tasks, documenting reproducible barriers with the relevant page and context. |
| What is included in the first trial? | Audit agreed website pages and customer tasks, specifying review methods, assistive-technology checks, and the distinction between observed barriers and a formal compliance opinion. |
| How will a prospect see the offer? | Offer an example issue report and explain what user testing is excluded. |
| What must happen before repeating the trial? | Findings have page references and evidence; an audit is not a blanket compliance certificate. |
Decide whether to continue
Review the specification with the buyer before committing to tools or stock. A trial is commercially useful only if actual costs, rejected work, time spent and cash collected can be reconciled. An audit is weak when it reports generic warnings without showing which customer task is blocked or how a developer can reproduce it.
If a buyer changes the required output, record a new scope and re-cost the test. Do not count a request for a different product as proof of demand for the original one. Keep personal contact details in your private records and use customer statements publicly only with permission.
Turn the example into a buyer test
Fictional accessibility review A11Y-91 examines five pages and one enquiry journey on a small business site: home, services, process, about and contact. Output is a scoped issue register with URL, reproduction steps, user impact, evidence and proposed remedy. Example finding: 'On contact page, keyboard focus reaches Send but no visible focus indicator appears.' It is a preliminary practical review, not full WCAG conformance certification. Remediation, legal assurance and testing every browser/assistive technology are excluded unless separately agreed.
| Buyer discussion | Evidence to retain |
|---|---|
| Specification to confirm | A default home page alone does not cover error messages, menus or form confirmation. |
| Output to inspect | Automated scan output is evidence to investigate, not proof of complete compliance or accessibility. |
| Failure that can defeat acceptance | Automated report says pass but keyboard fails |
Ask the buyer to describe one acceptable and one unacceptable result. Record the decision maker, price basis, quantity, handover point and payment date privately. A sample request, an encouraging conversation and an accepted order are different evidence. Keep the first commitment within your demonstrated capacity; no customer interview or successful trial is asserted here.
What a failed test should change
Reproduce the task manually and inspect focus/control behaviour.. If the offer cannot meet that check, revise the specification or process before promising a repeat. Keep rejected offers and reasons in the same register as positive replies so that your record does not exaggerate demand.