What changed in Europe in 2026
The European Accessibility Act already pushes many digital services toward WCAG-level accessibility. In September 2026, EN 301 549 v4.1.1 was published and adopts WCAG 2.2 as the technical direction — while the Official Journal legal reference for presumption of conformity remains EN 301 549 v3.2.1 (WCAG 2.1 AA) until the Commission cites the new version.
Teams still need a practical way to find missing lang attributes, unlabeled inputs, empty buttons, broken ARIA references, and zoom-locking viewports on every deploy — without pretending a crawler proved courtroom compliance.
What AuditHQ’s AHQ-A11Y rules measure
Website audits fold AHQ-A11Y-0001 through 0020 into Lab → Accessibility: document language, image alt attributes, form names, link and button names, iframe titles, heading outline, skip link or main landmark, tables without th, invalid roles, aria-hidden focus traps, duplicate ids, generic link text, filename-like alt, video captions tracks, and restrictive viewport zoom.
Fails dock the Accessibility score. Advisory rows (language mismatch heuristics, generic links, filename alt, odd autofocus) half-weight so soft hints cannot crush a healthy site alone.
What stays in cannotCheck — on purpose
Colour contrast, focus order, keyboard traps, meaningfulness of alt text, motion triggers, timing limits, and live-region announcement order need rendering or human judgement. WCAG 2.2 additions such as focus not obscured and target size also need a browser.
AuditHQ prints that list on the Accessibility group. A URL scan that claims full EAA conformity is lying; an honest passive scanner that catches about a third of WCAG and says so is the credible product.
How to use the findings this week
Open Lab measurements → Accessibility (or Lab Fix first when an A11Y row is top). Fix the measured HTML — add lang, labels, alt, titles — then re-audit. Copy the section AI fix prompt only for the failing rules, not a generic “make the site accessible” brief.
Treat clearing AHQ-A11Y rows as engineering hygiene and EAA readiness practice, not as a signed EN 301 549 certificate for procurement.