Lodestone Accessibility Audit – Accessibility Checker

Lodestone Accessibility Audit is an accessibility checker for the person who maintains the site.
It scans a page and tells you what is wrong, which WCAG 2.2 success criterion it fails, which
element is at fault, and how to fix it — then keeps the record of what you found, what you fixed,
and what you decided to leave alone and why. It is a scanner and a reporter, not a widget bolted
onto the front end for visitors.

Scanning runs in your own browser using axe-core, the same open-source engine behind most
professional accessibility tooling. Your pages and your results are never sent anywhere. No
account, no API key, no scanning service, no setup wizard. Activate the plugin and scan a page
immediately.

This is not an accessibility overlay

Overlay widgets promise to “fix” accessibility with a line of JavaScript that rewrites your
page for visitors. They are rejected by the disability community, they have been the subject of
lawsuits, and they do not work. This plugin adds nothing to your front end for visitors. It shows you
what is broken so that you can fix it properly, in your content and your theme.

Which standard, and which law

WCAG is the standard the rules point at, so WCAG 2.2 is what this tests against:

• The European Accessibility Act reaches it through EN 301 549, the harmonised European
  standard, which incorporates WCAG.
• Section 508 incorporates WCAG 2.0 Level AA for US federal agencies and their suppliers.
• Under the ADA, the Department of Justice’s 2024 rule adopted WCAG 2.1 Level AA for state
  and local government. For private businesses no rule names a version, and WCAG is the
  reference courts have generally worked from.

WCAG 2.2 contains everything in 2.0 and 2.1, so testing against it covers all three. What no
automated tool can do — this one included — is tell you that you meet any of them. See the
questions below.

The accessibility statement

Most of these regimes expect a published statement: what you tested, when, what you found, and
what you have not fixed yet. The plugin generates one as a normal page you can edit, dated, and
carrying a paragraph that says plainly which parts of the site were checked automatically and
that automated testing does not cover everything. That paragraph is not configurable, because a
statement that overstates what you know is worse than no statement.

The free statement already carries the feedback route visitors are meant to have. Pro adds the
rest of the EU model accessibility statement (Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2018/1523):
the non-compliance and disproportionate-burden sections, what is out of scope, how the assessment
was made and on what date, and the enforcement body a visitor can escalate to.

What the free version does, permanently

• Scan any post, page or custom post type on demand, from the row action in your lists or from the block editor sidebar.
• Re-scan automatically when you save a post in the block editor.
• Full detail on every issue: the axe rule, its impact level, the WCAG 2.2 success criterion it maps to, the CSS selector, the offending markup, and a link to the fix documentation.
• “Show on page”: open any issue on the real page with the element outlined and the problem named beside it. Only you see it — it is signed for you and for that issue, and checked against your permission to edit that post.
• The checks axe-core cannot decide on its own, listed by name, with how many elements each one covers and a link to how to check it by hand.
• A dashboard across everything you have scanned: open issues, a breakdown by severity, and the worst offending pages.
• Ignore an individual issue, with a required written reason recorded against your name and the date.
• Generate a plain accessibility statement page.

There is no page limit, no scan quota, no trial period, and nothing that switches itself off
later. If you never buy the Pro version, nothing you use today stops working.

What Pro adds

Pro is for people who have to prove the work was done: a full ignore log with author, date and
reason, exportable; history and trend lines showing regressions; CSV and printable audit
exports; and the rest of the EU model accessibility statement. It also adds a queue that scans
every published post and page from one screen, weekly or monthly re-scan scheduling, a small set
of genuinely safe server-side fixes (all off by default), WP-CLI commands for status, exports and
starting a run, and a multisite network dashboard. Scans always run in a browser, because the
checks need one — nothing scans unattended.

One notice, and one menu

The plugin shows exactly one dismissible admin notice, ever. It tells you where the plugin
lives and retires itself the moment you open that screen. It registers one top-level menu and
nothing else: every screen is a tab inside it. No banners, no countdown timers, no nags on
other people’s screens, no onboarding wizard, and nothing installed or suggested that you did
not ask for.

We ask you for exactly one thing, once. After the scanner has completed a few scans, a panel on
the plugin’s own scan screen asks whether you would rate it on WordPress.org. It is not an admin
notice, it is only ever shown to editors and administrators, and whichever button you press —
including “No thanks” — it never appears again.

There is no activation step and no consent screen in your way. Licensing is handled by the
Freemius SDK, which starts switched off: nothing is registered and nothing is transmitted
unless you go and opt in, and everything works whether you ever do or not. The one thing not
in our hands is that opening the upgrade page adds a Freemius “Upgrade” item under the menu
while you are on it.