Generate and publish an accessibility statement from an audit.
Goal
Produce a publishable accessibility statement reflecting the audit's findings.
Preconditions
- The audit's criteria have been evaluated, and its coverage is full. A reduced audit is a non-conformity check and should not be used to declare conformance.
- Failures and Derogations have problem and solution text, and the notes meant for the public document are marked as notes for the statement. See methodology / finding quality and methodology / using notes.
- The audit carries its country and responsible body, set in the audit's settings.
- A statement template exists for the workspace: the built-in one, or your own if you are on Pro or Enterprise.
- The organisation's multi-year accessibility plan exists in CheckFox, because the statement has to link to it. See create an accessibility plan.
Steps
- Open the audit and go to the Statements tab.
- Click New statement and name it. The name titles its public page.
- Choose the multi-year accessibility plan to link. CheckFox adds the link to that plan and to the current year's action plan; the current year is worked out at publication, so it never has to be changed in January.
- Click Preview and read the document in each language you intend to publish. The preview names any variable with no value yet; those placeholders would stay visible in the published document.
- Fix what the preview reveals. The statement is rendered from the audit, the workspace and the template, so corrections are made there rather than in the statement itself.
- Click Publish. Each publication writes a numbered, immutable version per language and gives the statement a permanent public address.
- Download the HTML file and publish it on your own website. That is what actually discharges the legal obligation; the CheckFox address is a convenience and a reference copy. Record where you published it so search engines treat your copy as canonical.
Later audits change the underlying data, and CheckFox then flags the statement as out of date. Refresh and publish issues the next version.
Verify success
- The public address opens and shows the statement.
- The links to the multi-year plan and to the current year's plan are present. A plan that is not published yet is left out rather than linked to a missing page.
- No
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Common pitfalls
- Publishing only on CheckFox. The law asks for a statement on your own site.
- Empty issues section. Even a fully conformant audit should state its scope limitations and known exceptions.
- Missing contact and enforcement sections. These are legally required.
- Forgetting to update after the next audit. Set a reminder for the next review date.