How it works
Scan, fix, report. No overlays.
reala11y works at the code level. It scans the HTML your WordPress site actually serves, applies safe fixes through WordPress filters, offers optional AI authoring help with your own API key, and produces honest documentation. No floating widget, no client-side patching, no compliance promises.
01 — Scan
A WCAG 2.2 rule library, in your editor and across your site
Run a scan from the dashboard or from the block editor's sidebar. reala11y fetches the rendered HTML — the theme's real output — and checks it against 25 WCAG 2.2 rules — all free, flagging each issue with its rule, success criterion, and a suggested remedy. Dismiss false positives with a note; they stay dismissed.
reala11y reads the HTML your server sends and does not run your site's JavaScript. When a page turns out to be assembled in the browser, it says so on that page and shows how little it could actually read — because a page it could not see produces almost no findings, and a low count is the one result you should never mistake for a clean one.
- Missing alt text (1.1.1)
- Color contrast (1.4.3)
- Theme-palette contrast (1.4.3)
- Heading hierarchy (1.3.1)
- Empty headings (1.3.1)
- Form labels (3.3.2)
- Empty buttons / links (4.1.2)
- Link purpose (2.4.4)
- Repeated link text (2.4.4)
- Invalid or inconsistent ARIA (4.1.2)
- Iframes with no name (4.1.2)
- Language attribute (3.1.1)
- Skip link to main (2.4.1)
- Target size 24×24 (2.5.8, new in 2.2)
- …plus 12 more — 26 rules in all
02 — Triage
A work list, not a wall of findings
The Site audit screen groups every finding by rule across your whole site, worst severity first — so one missing skip link in your theme reads as a single job affecting twelve pages, not twelve separate issues. A rule found on every page scanned is called out as likely coming from your theme or a template. Export the lot as a CSV for your developer, and mute rules you have already judged — they stay in every scan and in the export, so muting is triage, never denial.
Each scan is also compared with the previous scan of the same page: what is newly reported, what is no longer reported, and what is still there, with the elements behind each. A count on its own has no direction — forty issues today reads the same whether last week was forty or four. This is what catches a theme or plugin update quietly undoing a fix. What disappeared is called "no longer reported" rather than "fixed", because reala11y cannot tell whether you repaired an element or deleted it.
03 — Fix
Safe, code-level remediation you control
Toggle on the fixes you want. reala11y registers WordPress filters that write the change into the rendered HTML — so screen readers, crawlers, and audit tools all see the corrected page, not a runtime patch. Tier 1 fixes are attribute-only and cannot alter visible content; every fix has one-click rollback, and a single Safe Mode switch disables them all.
- Skip-link injection
- Focus-outline CSS
- Minimum target-size padding
- Main landmark role
- Restore pinch-to-zoom
- rel="noopener noreferrer"
- Strip duplicate ids
- Strip positive tabindex
- Strip redundant image title attrs
- Clean tag-cloud link titles
Some findings are repaired one at a time, with a value reala11y works out from your own site rather than generates. A link reading "read more" is offered the title of the page it opens, and a link with no text at all is offered that title as its name — no API key, on every install. It stays quiet instead of guessing: a link pointing off-site, at a draft, or at a page whose title would read no better than "read more" gets no suggestion. You edit the wording before applying it, and Undo restores the post exactly.
Fixes are logged for audit and are idempotent — re-running changes nothing. Auto-apply of safe fixes is off by default until you opt in.
04 — AI (optional, bring your own key)
Author-facing AI that suggests — you review and apply
Every install — including the free plugin — ships the full bring-your-own-key AI suite for OpenAI, Anthropic, or Google Gemini. You supply your own API key; we never resell quota and never store your AI responses. A local cost ledger with daily and per-feature caps keeps spend predictable, and every AI result carries a clear "Generated by AI — please review for accuracy" note. Keys are encrypted at rest and never shown back to you in full.
- Alt text for images
- Long descriptions for complex images
- Readability rewriting
- Descriptive link text
- Heading-structure suggestions
- Form-label suggestions
- Plain-language WCAG explainer
- Statement personalizer
- Manual-fix code generator
- Color-contrast suggester
- Decorative-image detector
- PDF document summary
Until you add a key, the AI features stay inert — the plugin makes no AI calls on its own.
05 — Report
A statement and a VPAT starter — not a guarantee
Generate a customizable accessibility statement and a Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) starter from your actual scan results. Scheduled scans can deliver recurring email reports. We won't tell you you're "fully compliant" — we give you documentation you can take to your legal team and your auditor.
The generated statement is a template. Review it with your legal counsel and update it to reflect your real conformance status before publishing.
The honest part
No automated tool — ours included — makes a website "WCAG compliant," "ADA compliant," or "lawsuit-proof." By criteria, automated tooling detects approximately 30–40% of WCAG failures; by issue volume, public analyses put automated coverage of common errors higher, but the remainder requires manual review by a person. reala11y pairs automated scanning with the documentation you need for that review. It does not certify compliance or guarantee freedom from lawsuits.