Making accessibility work visible and verifiable with the Accessibility Registry
Accessibility work is often hard to see, but its impact is real. We wanted to change that. We created The Accessibility Registry, which makes accessibility achievements transparent, traceable, and easy to recognise.
By documenting every project we work on in terms of accessibility, assigning unique certificate IDs, and providing official badges, we help organisations show their commitment while helping users find accessible platforms.
The challenge ahead
Accessibility progress is often fragmented and hard to verify. Evaluations remain buried in reports, accessibility statements vary widely in detail, and there is rarely a simple public record showing what was tested, how it was tested, and what changed. Some countries do maintain public registers of accessibility statements — for example, the Netherlands operates a national register and dashboard — but availability and scope differ from market to market. Our aim was to create a registry of our own: a practical tool for us, for our clients, and ultimately for their users.
How we approached it
Documenting accessibility achievements
We created the accessibility registry, a living public record of the digital platforms we work on, with evaluation at the core of every project. Each entry follows a consistent format so anyone can quickly understand the scope and verify the details. Each record includes:
- Basic information such as the date and details of the digital product.
- A unique certificate ID for traceability.
- The type of work performed: accessible platform (a website or application we have designed and developed to meet accessibility standards), accessibility evaluation, accessibility statement, accessibility conformance report (ACR), and feedback mechanism.
- The methods and standards applied.
- The web accessibility specialists involved in the project.
- Links to the product and to the organisation’s accessibility statement and ACR on their website.
Visualising commitment with badges
To make accessibility achievements visible and verifiable, we designed official badges for the Accessibility Registry. Organisations can choose to link the badge back to their public registry entry for added transparency. The badges are:
- Certified IDP — Awarded to platforms created according to Inclusive Design Principles and accessibility standards (EN 301 549 and WCAG).
- Evaluated against EN 301 549 — Awarded to platforms that have undergone a formal accessibility conformance evaluation against the European harmonised standard EN 301 549, which includes WCAG.
- Evaluated against WCAG — Awarded to platforms that have undergone a formal accessibility conformance evaluation against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), from version 2.1 to 2.2, and from level AA to AAA.
Clients can display these badges on their websites, in accessibility statements, and in public communications, giving users an immediate and trustworthy signal.
Impact
For organisations, the registry offers a credible, portable way to evidence progress across channels. For users, it provides a quick, reliable cue that a platform has been built or evaluated to recognised standards. For our team, it builds a consistent knowledge base to spot patterns, compare approaches across industries, and measure improvements over time. And beyond individual projects, we hope it can inspire national bodies and other organisations to develop broader systems of accountability and transparency.
