Wagtail accessibility statistics

Here are 4 common issues detectable with our built-in checker:

• button-name: 65% of Wagtail sites pass this. A button element on the page is lacking a label. This is entirely detectable with automated tests such as those featured in our built-in accessibility checker, built on Axe.
• frame-title: 50% of sites passing. A frame (such as an embedded video) is missing its title. Again entirely detectable with automated tests – and very simple to fix once identified!
• heading-order: 50% passing. Some heading levels are getting skipped on the page – always have a main heading (h1) followed by subheadings (h2, h3, etc.).
• link-name: 38% passing. Just like button-name, one of the page’s links is missing its title.

All of those issues are common on the web, but with the right tests in place, there is no reason for that to remain the case.

Here is the data for this graph: Lighthouse checks, 2023-04.

We see clear improvements over time on accessibility scores of Wagtail sites, but they’re too slow-moving:

This shows the mean accessibility score of Wagtail sites over time, compared to industry-average figures. Wagtail sites are consistently doing better – but only just (83 in June 2021, 85 in April 2023 – always one or two points above industry average).

With appropriate targets and ongoing testing, there is no reason all sites couldn’t score a perfect "100" (no issues detected) on those tests.

Data for this chart is from the Core Web Vitals Technology Report.

Accessibility tip #3: Support High contrast mode on your websites! Also known as Contrast themes, it allows users to adjust the colour palette of the site to better suit their vision. Very few websites make adjustments to support it:

• "forced-colours" indicates a website making adjustments for users with custom colour palettes – for example adding extra borders. This is used on 8.13% of Wagtail sites, and 8.69% on the average website.
• "prefers-contrast" indicates a website adjusting its styles based on whether users request more or *less* contrast, which is an option in iOS and Android. This is used on 1.19% of Wagtail sites, and 1.11% on the average website.

We’ve made a lot of adjustments in recent versions of Wagtail to better support Contrast Themes / High contrast mode. Here’s an example in the default dark theme:

Aim higher with all things accessibility. Wagtail sites are doing better year over year, but there’s still lots to do:

In 2023, we found 4.44% of Wagtail sites had no issues detected, compared to 3.83% in 2022. Those numbers are above industry averages but nowhere near our ambitions.

All sites could score a perfect "0 errors" detected - and then further spend time on manual tests which can also uncover fundamental issues.

We hope our commitment to the ATAG 2.0 standard will help all Wagtail sites get there, with tools like our accessibility checker paving the way.

Here is the data for this graph: Lighthouse scores, 2023-04.

The data we use comes from a dataset of the world’s top 8M website homepages: HTTP Archive. 4,000+ websites in this dataset are identified as using Wagtail, thanks to Wappalyzer.

From this dataset, we then extract specific statistics following the methodology of the 2022 HTTP Archive Web Almanac’s accessibility chapter – but filtering to only assess Wagtail projects.

Find the original blog and more Wagtail resources over on the Wagtail website.

Learn more about our Accessibility Testing service

We can identify barriers your users may be coming up against, and suggest updates to improve the usability of the site for all. Find out more.