We Scanned 699 Australian Websites for Accessibility Compliance. 81.8% Fail.
The most comprehensive independent study of web accessibility in Australia. Every site was scanned with axe-core 4.11 and Lighthouse 13 across desktop and mobile viewports, tested against WCAG 2.1 Level AA as referenced by the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 and the Australian Human Rights Commission.
Published: March 2026|Scanner: axe-core 4.11 + Lighthouse 13|Standard: WCAG 2.1 AA (DDA / AHRC)
699
Sites scanned
25.1
Avg accessibility score (0-100)
81.8%
Sites failing (score below 70)
11
Industries represented
Average Score
At 25.1/100, Australia has one of the lowest averages we have measured globally.
Average Accessibility Score
Score below 70 is considered failing. 100 = fully accessible.
25.1
Failing
Score Distribution
The heavy concentration at 0-10 reflects widespread critical non-compliance.
Score Distribution
How 624 sites spread across 10-point score bands
Compliance by Industry
Average score across 11 industries.
Average Score by Industry
613 sites across 7 industries, sorted worst to best
Below 30 (critical)30-69 (at risk)70+ (passing)
Industry Deep Dives
Select an industry to see detailed statistics
12.2
avg score
0.0
median score
86%
fail rate
82.5%
critical violations
14%
passing rate
26.7
std deviation
0 - 0
Q1 - Q3 range
57
sites in sample
Score position (0-100) — avg vs passing threshold
0Pass (70)100
Site Clusters (ML Analysis)
KMeans clustering groups sites by violation profiles.
Site Clusters by Violation Pattern
Sites grouped by shared violation fingerprints using k-means clustering. Bubble size = number of sites.
142
Link Name + Color Contrast + Landmark Unique
Avg score: 2.6 | Median: | 142 sites
Link name: 95.1Color contrast: 93.7Unique landmarks: 82.4
Which violations appear together on the same site.
Violation Co-occurrence Heatmap
Color intensity = how often two violations appear on the same site. Diagonal = overall frequency.
Main landmark
Landmark regions
Color contrast
Link name
Unique landmarks
Heading order
H1 heading
Target size
Image alt
Main landmark
242
224
143
144
0
0
132
0
0
Landmark regions
224
242
214
215
157
143
141
130
0
Color contrast
143
214
300
219
177
0
0
0
0
Link name
144
215
219
300
182
126
0
0
126
Unique landmarks
0
157
177
182
248
0
0
0
0
Heading order
0
143
0
126
0
204
0
0
0
H1 heading
132
141
0
0
0
0
184
0
0
Target size
0
130
0
0
0
0
0
383
0
Image alt
0
0
0
126
0
0
0
0
165
LowHighDiagonal (individual frequency)
Top Violation Co-occurrence Pairs
Which violations most commonly appear together on the same site. Jaccard = how tightly paired they are (0-1).
Violation A
Violation B
Co-occur
% of Sites
Jaccard
Main landmark
Landmark regions
224
35.3%
0.000
Color contrast
Link name
219
34.5%
0.000
Link name
Landmark regions
215
33.9%
0.000
Color contrast
Landmark regions
214
33.7%
0.000
Unique landmarks
Link name
182
28.7%
0.000
Color contrast
Unique landmarks
177
27.9%
0.000
Unique landmarks
Landmark regions
157
24.7%
0.000
Main landmark
Link name
144
22.7%
0.000
Color contrast
Main landmark
143
22.5%
0.000
Heading order
Landmark regions
143
22.5%
0.000
H1 heading
Landmark regions
141
22.2%
0.000
Main landmark
H1 heading
132
20.8%
0.000
Landmark regions
Target size
130
20.5%
0.000
Image alt
Link name
126
19.8%
0.000
Heading order
Link name
126
19.8%
0.000
Jaccard similarity above 0.4 indicates these violations almost always appear together. Fixing one likely requires addressing the other as well.
Impact on Score (Regression)
Which violations most reduce accessibility scores.
What Impacts Score the Most
Linear regression: which violations drag your score down the most. R² = 0.730 (model explains 73% of score variance).
Red bars = violations that lower your score. Green bars = violations that correlate with higher scores (often co-occur with better sites overall). These coefficients control for other violations — each reflects independent impact.
Lighthouse Performance
Best and Worst Performers
Best and Worst Performing Sites
Real sites from the scan data. Scores are based on axe-core violations only.