Accessibility Barrier

Any aspect of a digital product, web page, document, or service that prevents or impedes a person with a disability from perceiving, operating, understanding, or using it on an equivalent basis to someone without that disability. Examples include missing alt text on images, insufficient colour contrast, keyboard traps, form fields without labels, timeouts with no user control, and content that relies solely on sensory characteristics (shape, position, colour). Accessibility barriers are classified by tools like Axe into severity levels (critical, serious, moderate, minor) or mapped to WCAG success criteria and conformance levels (A, AA, AAC). Identifying, counting, and prioritising barriers is the core output of both manual audits and automated testing.