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 Obviously, the links go out of date when the referenced pages get updated in a way that eliminates the issue; for this reason, the access dates are also given.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

Focus Order

Properly Implemented Cookie Consent Dialogs

Many cookie consent forms are pop-up windows that are not modal, so keyboard focus disappears behind them. The examples listed below either have a proper modal dialog or a cookie consent form at the bottom of the page.

Pages Featuring Various Accessibility Issues

Low Contrast

Relying on Colour or Other Visual Characteristics

Issues Regarding Text Alternatives

Nested Tables

Carousels That Don't Move Automatically or That Have a Pause Button

Background Videos, Other Animated Backgrounds and Other Autoplaying Videos

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

Carousels and Other Animations

These animations constitute an issue if they run longer than five 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.

Non-modal Dialogs That Are Hard to Reach

Broken Modal Dialogs

Live Updates

Navigation Menus

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.

Other Moving or Updating Content

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

Language Markup

Abuse of Structural or Semantic Markup

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:

Websites or Pages for Learning Accessibility Auditing

Sites That Intercept Right-Clicks and/or Keyboard Shortcuts

Most sites that intercept right-clicks, keyboard shortcuts or both do this to prevent the copying of content.

Horizontally Scrolling Page Designs

Examples of Accessible Websites or Specific Features

Some of the Worst Websites Ever?

Other Links