Examples of Failures and Features

This page contains lists of pages and websites that either exhibit specific accessibility issues (which cause non-compliance) or specific accessibility features that are in and of themselves insufficient to reach compliance. The page is not intended as a hall of shame but as a quarry from which accessibility advocates and lecturers can retrieve examples of specific accessibility issues. Obviously, the links go out of date when the referenced pages get updated in a way that eliminates the issue; for this reason, the access dates are also given.

Other examples than those listed below can be found in articles such as 8 Examples Of Bad Web Design in 2021.

Websites Claiming WCAG Conformance

Pages Featuring Various Accessibility Issues

Low Contrast

Issues Regarding Text Alternatives

Nested Tables

Animations and Animated Backgrounds

These animations (and videos) constitute an issue because they run longer than a few seconds and cannot be paused or hidden by users.

Animated GIF were very popular in the late 1990s and early 2000s but have become less common on websites (except social media). See for example 11 Best Old School Animated GIFs (by Sam Greenspan, 2008, updated in 2018), the archive at textfiles.com, and GifCities.

Flashes or Flashing Content

Autoplaying Video (with Audio)

Invisible or Barely Visible Keyboard Focus

Keyboard Trap

Since the demise of Java applets and Flash animations, keyboard traps have become rare.

Broken Modal Dialogs

Live Updates

Linktext That Is Not Meaningful

Forms

fieldset and legend

Page Title

Examples where the title element is not meaningful, missing or has other issues.

Frames

Frames, implemented using the elements frameset and frame, were once of feature of HTML 4. HTML 5.0 declared these elements non-conforming, but they don't necessarily consitute of violation of WCAG 2.0 or 2.1.

Marquee

The marquee element was never part of HTML 3.2 or HTML 4.01, and HTML 5.0 listed marquee as obsolete. Nevertheless, the element is still supported by browsers and can still be found on current websites.

Lists without list markup:

Mystery Meat Navigation

Images of Text and Complex Images

Layout Tables

Fake Tables

Datepickers

Keyboard Accessibility Issues

Video Accessibility Issues

Image Maps

Pages With Various Accessibility Features or Tools

Externally developed toolbars or overlays:

Widgets for contrast, background colour, font size or a combination of these:

Other examples:

Some of the Worst Websites Ever?

Other Links