Whether you can fix accessibility issues yourself depends greatly on the type of problem. Missing alternative text on an image or insufficient colour contrast in your brand guidelines can often be adjusted yourself, typically directly in your CMS. A checkout process that doesn't work with a screen reader, or a login form where focus doesn't move logically, usually requires someone who understands the underlying code.
The boundary is not about being technical or not, but about the depth of the intervention. Text, labels, colours and content structure are usually within reach of an office manager or marketer. Interactive components, such as a shopping cart, a keyboard-controlled filter or a step-by-step checkout process, often affect the code of your theme, your custom components or the plugins you use. These typically require a developer who understands how ARIA attributes, focus order and form error messages work in practice.
What is reasonably within your own capabilities
Many smaller issues are more a matter of discipline than technical knowledge. Think of adding alt text to every new image, checking that headings are in the correct order, or adjusting a contrast ratio in your style guide. Drawing up the mandatory accessibility statement and documenting your own assessment are also steps you can take yourself with the right templates; you can read more about this in the guidance on each requirement in the knowledge base.
What is often underestimated is maintenance. A website changes constantly: a new page, a different form, a modified button. Every change can reintroduce a previously solved problem. Keeping track of this yourself is not itself a technical issue, but it is a process that requires ongoing attention, not a one-time action.
Where self-service ends
Certain problems go deeper than text or formatting. A checkout that can only be operated with a mouse, a modal that doesn't retain keyboard focus, or a search function that doesn't announce error messages to a screen reader: these are situations where the code structure itself must change. This is not a matter of adjusting a setting, but of rebuilding or rewriting a component. For this type of work, you usually need a developer, a front-end specialist or a vendor with experience in accessible interfaces.
This is also where automated testing reaches its limits. A scan may flag, for example, that a button has no visible focus indicator, but cannot assess whether the order in which elements are announced to a screen reader makes sense. That is why every report states that an automated scan cannot test part of the requirements. The quick scan shows in a few minutes where you roughly stand, but translating a technical finding into a working solution is human work, and often work for someone other than yourself.
What an overlay widget does not solve
Some vendors promise that a standalone script, called an overlay, automatically fixes accessibility issues without you having to change the underlying code. That sounds like the ideal self-service solution, but an overlay only reads and rewrites the page at the surface level when a visitor opens the site. The underlying structure, focus order and actual keyboard operation do not change. An overlay does not comply with the law, and that is why we do not sell them either.
When outsourcing makes more sense
To document, prioritize, and monitor changes, you can take control of the process yourself with the right support; that is precisely what axessia is designed for. For the actual repair of complex components, such as a checkout step or a custom login screen, the work usually lies with your developer or agency. We do not perform manual audits or repair work ourselves; we test, prioritize, document, and monitor that the result remains intact after each change. You can read how that testing works in detail on the page about our methodology and the sources we use.
If you are unsure whether a specific issue is something you can tackle yourself or better outsource, that is a question that differs by situation and is better assessed by a developer or accessibility specialist than by a general checklist. An overview of frequently asked practical questions, including this type of trade-off, can be found on the page with answers to questions that business owners often ask.
Do you want to first find out where your own website currently stands, without needing an account for it? Take the free quick-scan and read in plain language which components need attention, and which you can likely handle yourself.