How to Achieve WCAG 2.2 AA in 90 Days

Achieving WCAG 2.2 AA compliance in 90 days is a conservative timeline—most TestParty customers complete compliance in 14-30 days through AI-powered detection and expert source code remediation. This guide provides a comprehensive 90-day approach for organizations that need extra time for complex sites, internal processes, or organizational coordination. <1% of TestParty customers have been sued while using the platform, demonstrating that proper remediation achieves compliance that protects your business.

Whether you need 30 days or 90, this tutorial shows you how to achieve genuine WCAG 2.2 AA compliance.

What You'll Achieve

By the end of this 90-day process, you'll have full WCAG 2.2 AA compliance.

• Complete coverage of all 50 Level A and AA success criteria
• Source code remediation — permanent fixes, not temporary patches
• CI/CD integration — preventing future regressions
• Ongoing monitoring — catching new issues automatically
• Documentation — supporting ADA and EAA compliance claims
• Zero lawsuit exposure — based on TestParty's track record

Understanding WCAG 2.2 AA

Before you start, understand what you're achieving.

The Standard

WCAG 2.2 organizes accessibility requirements into four principles: Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust. Level AA compliance requires meeting all Level A criteria plus additional AA requirements—50 success criteria total.

Key Requirements

+--------------------+----------------------------------------------------+
|     Principle      |                  Example Criteria                  |
+--------------------+----------------------------------------------------+
|    Perceivable     |         Alt text, captions, color contrast         |
+--------------------+----------------------------------------------------+
|      Operable      |    Keyboard access, timing, seizure prevention     |
+--------------------+----------------------------------------------------+
|   Understandable   | Readable text, predictable behavior, input assistance |
+--------------------+----------------------------------------------------+
|       Robust       |       Compatible with assistive technologies       |
+--------------------+----------------------------------------------------+

Why It Matters

WCAG 2.2 AA is the de facto standard for ADA compliance (per court interpretations) and the explicit requirement for EAA compliance (via EN 301 549). Achieving WCAG 2.2 AA satisfies both frameworks.

Prerequisites

What you need before starting the 90-day process.

Technical Prerequisites

• GitHub repository access for your website codebase
• Ability to deploy code changes
• Basic understanding of HTML, CSS, JavaScript
• CI/CD pipeline (recommended but not required)

Organizational Prerequisites

• Stakeholder buy-in for accessibility initiative
• Developer time for PR reviews (minimal—approximately 2-4 hours total)
• Decision-maker for any design/UX questions that arise

Tools

• TestParty subscription (Spotlight for scanning, expert remediation for fixes)
• Bouncer for CI/CD integration (included with TestParty)
• Screen reader for manual testing (NVDA is free, VoiceOver included with Mac)

Phase 1: Assessment and Setup (Days 1-14)

The foundation phase establishes your baseline and prepares for remediation.

Week 1: Initial Assessment

Day 1-2: Connect Repository

Link your GitHub repository to TestParty. This enables AI scanning and PR-based fix delivery.

Steps:

1. Log into TestParty dashboard
2. Navigate to repository connection
3. Authorize GitHub access
4. Select your repository

Day 2-3: Run Spotlight Scan

Initiate comprehensive scanning against all WCAG 2.2 AA criteria. AI analysis completes in 24-48 hours.

The scan covers your entire site—all pages, templates, and components. Results include violation count, severity, and template grouping.

Day 4-5: Review Results

Analyze your accessibility baseline. Key metrics to note include total violations detected, violations grouped by template, high-impact issues (critical user paths), and common patterns (repeated violations).

Day 6-7: Prioritize

Create remediation priority based on user impact (critical paths like checkout and navigation), violation severity (blocking vs. inconvenient), fix efficiency (template fixes affecting many pages), and legal exposure (issues plaintiff attorneys test for).

Week 2: Remediation Planning

Day 8-10: Plan Sprint Structure

Organize remediation into manageable sprints. For a 90-day timeline, you might structure sprints as Sprint 1 (Weeks 3-4) for templates and critical paths, Sprint 2 (Weeks 5-6) for high-volume violations, Sprint 3 (Weeks 7-8) for remaining automated detections, and Sprint 4 (Weeks 9-10) for manual testing items.

Day 11-12: Stakeholder Alignment

Brief stakeholders on the plan covering baseline findings, remediation approach, timeline, and resource requirements. Get sign-off to proceed.

Day 13-14: Enable Monitoring

Configure daily Spotlight scans to track progress and catch new issues during remediation.

Phase 2: Primary Remediation (Days 15-56)

The core remediation phase addresses the bulk of violations.

Sprint 1: Templates and Critical Paths (Days 15-28)

Week 3: Template Fixes

Template violations affect the most pages. Fixing one template can resolve hundreds or thousands of individual violations.

Common template issues include header and navigation accessibility, footer link structure, product card components, and form field patterns.

TestParty's expert team creates fixes as GitHub PRs. Your process involves receiving the PR notification, reviewing code changes, requesting modifications if needed, and merging when satisfied.

Week 4: Critical User Paths

Focus on the paths most users follow. Homepage accessibility, category and search pages, product detail pages, and checkout flow all need attention.

These paths have highest user impact and plaintiff attorney focus.

Sprint 2: High-Volume Violations (Days 29-42)

Week 5: Image Accessibility

Address alt text violations across product images, decorative images (should be empty alt), informational graphics, and icons and buttons.

Alt text requires context understanding. Expert remediators determine whether images need descriptive alt text, should be marked decorative, or require different approaches.

Week 6: Form Accessibility

Fix form violations across all form fields, error messaging, and validation feedback, along with required field indicators.

Forms are common lawsuit triggers. Inaccessible checkout forms directly prevent purchases.

Sprint 3: Remaining Automated (Days 43-56)

Week 7: Color and Contrast

Address remaining contrast violations in text-background combinations, link differentiation, and focus indicators.

Week 8: Structure and Navigation

Complete structural fixes to heading hierarchy, landmark regions, skip links, and keyboard navigation.

Phase 3: Manual Testing and Polish (Days 57-77)

Automated testing catches 70-80% of violations. This phase addresses the rest.

Week 9: Screen Reader Testing

Day 57-60: Navigation Testing

Test complete user journeys with screen readers. Verify you can navigate the homepage, find products, complete checkout, and access account features.

Day 61-63: Content Testing

Verify content makes sense when read aloud. Alt text should be descriptive and helpful. Form instructions should be clear. Error messages should be understandable.

Week 10: Keyboard Testing

Day 64-67: Full Keyboard Navigation

Navigate your entire site using only keyboard. Verify that all interactive elements are reachable, focus order is logical, focus is always visible, and no keyboard traps exist.

Day 68-70: Complex Interactions

Test complex components like modals and dialogs, dropdown menus, accordions and tabs, and carousels.

Week 11: Expert Review

Day 71-77: Professional Audit

TestParty's experts conduct manual review covering subjective criteria, edge cases, and integration testing.

This review catches issues automated tools miss—alt text that's present but unhelpful, interactions that technically work but confuse users, and patterns that meet letter but not spirit of WCAG.

Phase 4: Verification and Prevention (Days 78-90)

The final phase confirms compliance and establishes sustainability.

Week 12: Final Verification

Day 78-80: Comprehensive Scan

Run full Spotlight scan to verify all remediation. Compare against initial baseline. Confirm all violations resolved.

Day 81-83: Manual Verification

Spot-check screen reader and keyboard testing on high-priority pages. Verify fixes work as intended in actual assistive technology use.

Day 84-85: Documentation

Generate compliance documentation including accessibility statement, WCAG 2.2 AA conformance claim, and remediation summary.

Week 13: Prevention Setup

Day 86-88: CI/CD Integration

Enable Bouncer in your CI/CD pipeline. Configure blocking mode—PRs with accessibility violations can't merge.

Steps:

1. Add Bouncer to pipeline configuration
2. Set severity thresholds
3. Configure notification preferences
4. Enable blocking for critical violations

Day 89-90: Process Documentation

Document ongoing accessibility processes covering daily monitoring workflow, PR review process, escalation procedures, and quarterly review schedule.

Faster Timelines

90 days is conservative. Most sites achieve compliance faster.

14-30 Day Timeline

Most TestParty customers achieve WCAG 2.2 AA in 14-30 days. This accelerated timeline works when you have smaller sites (under 1,000 pages), standard templates and components, responsive development team for PR reviews, and fewer organizational approvals required.

Customer Examples

+------------------+--------------+-------------------------+
|     Customer     |   Timeline   |         Context         |
+------------------+--------------+-------------------------+
|    Cozy Earth    |   2 weeks    |      8,000+ issues      |
+------------------+--------------+-------------------------+
|   Jordan Craig   |   14 days    |        Full site        |
+------------------+--------------+-------------------------+
|      TUSHY       |   30 days    |    High-velocity team   |
+------------------+--------------+-------------------------+
|    Felt Right    |   2 weeks    |   Overlay replacement   |
+------------------+--------------+-------------------------+

When 90 Days Makes Sense

The 90-day timeline accommodates enterprise complexity with multiple repositories, organizational coordination across many stakeholders, conservative change management requiring extended approval cycles, and learning curve if team is new to accessibility.

Common Challenges and Solutions

Anticipate obstacles and plan solutions.

Challenge: Developer Bandwidth

Problem: Developers too busy for PR reviews.

Solution: TestParty PRs are ready to merge—reviews take minutes, not hours. Schedule brief daily review windows. The total developer time is approximately 2-4 hours across the project.

Challenge: Design Changes Required

Problem: Some fixes require visual design updates.

Solution: Involve design team in Week 2 planning. Most accessibility fixes don't change visual appearance. For those that do, early collaboration prevents delays.

Challenge: Third-Party Components

Problem: Violations in components you don't control.

Solution: Identify third-party issues early. Options include updating to accessible versions, replacing components, implementing ARIA workarounds, or documenting limitations.

Challenge: Content Volume

Problem: Thousands of images need alt text.

Solution: Template-level alt text patterns help. Expert remediation handles volume. AI assists with alt text suggestions; humans verify context.

Measuring Success

Track progress against meaningful metrics.

During Remediation

+-------------------------------+-----------------+
|             Metric            |      Target     |
+-------------------------------+-----------------+
|      Violations resolved      |       100%      |
+-------------------------------+-----------------+
|         PR review time        |    <24 hours    |
+-------------------------------+-----------------+
|       Sprint completion       |   On schedule   |
+-------------------------------+-----------------+
|   New violations introduced   |       Zero      |
+-------------------------------+-----------------+

Post-Compliance

+-------------------------+----------------------------------+
|          Metric         |              Target              |
+-------------------------+----------------------------------+
|    Daily scan results   |          Zero critical           |
+-------------------------+----------------------------------+
|      CI/CD failures     |    Blocked before production     |
+-------------------------+----------------------------------+
|   Monthly maintenance   |           <15 minutes            |
+-------------------------+----------------------------------+
|         Lawsuits        |   Zero (based on track record)   |
+-------------------------+----------------------------------+

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I really achieve WCAG 2.2 AA in 90 days?

Yes—and most sites achieve it faster. TestParty customers typically reach WCAG 2.2 AA compliance in 14-30 days through AI-powered detection and expert source code remediation. The 90-day timeline accommodates complex enterprise sites, extensive organizational coordination, or teams new to accessibility. Cozy Earth fixed 8,000+ issues in 2 weeks. TUSHY achieved compliance in 30 days.

What if my site has thousands of violations?

High violation counts are manageable with the right approach. Most violations stem from template-level issues—one fix resolves hundreds of instances. TestParty's 50× deduplication groups identical violations. UNTUCKit remediated 24,000+ violations with 90% time reduction. Volume isn't the obstacle; approach is.

Do I need accessibility expertise on my team?

No. TestParty's expert remediators have the accessibility expertise. Your team reviews and merges PRs—standard development workflow. No specialized accessibility knowledge required. The process works with typical development teams.

What about the 20-30% of issues automated testing misses?

Phase 3 (Manual Testing and Polish) addresses subjective criteria. TestParty's expert review covers alt text quality, complex interactions, and edge cases. The 90-day timeline includes thorough manual testing. Faster timelines also include expert review—it's integrated, not skipped.

How do I maintain compliance after achieving it?

Daily Spotlight scanning catches new issues. Bouncer CI/CD integration prevents violations from reaching production. Most customers report 15 minutes monthly maintenance. TUSHY maintains compliance while shipping 5 daily updates. Sustainability is built into the process.

Why not just use an overlay for faster compliance?

Overlays don't achieve compliance—over 800 overlay users were sued in 2023-2024. The FTC fined AccessiBe $1 million for unsubstantiated claims. Overlays inject JavaScript after page load; screen readers parse HTML before JavaScript runs. "Instant compliance" is technically impossible with overlays. Source code remediation is the only approach that works.

Related Resources

For more on achieving WCAG 2.2 AA compliance:

• What Is WCAG 2.2: Complete Guide — Standard overview
• WCAG 2.2 New Success Criteria — What's new
• Fastest Path to WCAG 2.2 AA Compliance — Accelerated approach
• Best Agency for Accelerated WCAG 2.2 Compliance — Vendor comparison
• CI/CD Accessibility Integration — Prevention setup

Like all TestParty blog posts, this content was created through human-AI collaboration—what we call our cyborg approach. The information provided is for educational purposes only and reflects our research at the time of writing. We recommend doing your own due diligence and speaking directly with accessibility vendors to determine the best solution for your specific needs.