Audit Scope

title: "Defining Audit Scope" weight: 13 description: "Learn how to define the scope of an accessibility audit including which pages, WCAG levels, assistive technologies, and platforms to include, plus exclusions, constraints, and sampling strategies." date: 2026-06-28 lastmod: 2026-06-28 tags: [accessibility, auditing]

Audit scope defines what will and will not be evaluated during an accessibility audit, including page selection (which URLs, user flows, page types), WCAG conformance level (A, AA, or AAA), assistive technologies (screen readers, magnification), and platforms (desktop, mobile, tablet).

## What You'll Learn

You will define audit scope using page sampling strategies, select appropriate WCAG levels, choose assistive technologies, and document scope boundaries clearly.

## Why It Matters

Scope directly impacts audit cost, timeline, and legal defensibility. An under-scoped audit misses critical pages. An over-scoped audit wastes budget. Well-defined scope ensures stakeholders know exactly what was tested.

## Real-World Use

An audit of a 2000-page e-commerce site uses a sampling strategy: all templates (home, product, cart, checkout, account), plus the top 20 visited pages. This covers all unique patterns without testing every page individually.

## Scope Definition Flow

```mermaid
flowchart TD
  A[Define Scope] --> B[Page Selection]
  A --> C[WCAG Level]
  A --> D[Assistive Tech]
  A --> E[Platforms]
  B --> F[Template-based]
  B --> G[Traffic-based]
  B --> H[User-flow-based]
  C --> I[A, AA, or AAA]
  D --> J[NVDA, VoiceOver, JAWS]
  E --> K[Desktop, Mobile, Tablet]
  F --> L[Scope Document]
  G --> L
  H --> L

Defining Scope

Document the exact URLs or URL patterns included, the WCAG level being evaluated, the assistive technologies used, and what is excluded.

<!-- Pages in scope based on template sampling -->
<nav>
  <a href="/">Homepage (in scope)</a>
  <a href="/products">Product listing (in scope)</a>
  <a href="/products/123">Product detail (in scope)</a>
  <a href="/cart">Cart (in scope)</a>
  <a href="/checkout">Checkout (in scope)</a>
  <a href="/account">Account (in scope)</a>
  <a href="/blog">Blog listing (in scope)</a>
  <a href="/blog/post">Blog post (in scope)</a>
  <!-- /admin/* pages are out of scope -->
</nav>

/* Platforms in scope */
@media (max-width: 768px) {
  /* Mobile layouts are in scope */
  .nav { flex-direction: column; }
}

@media (min-width: 769px) {
  /* Desktop layouts are in scope */
  .nav { flex-direction: row; }
}

// Scope document template
const auditScope = {
  title: 'E-commerce Site Accessibility Audit',
  urls: {
    included: [
      'https://example.com/',
      'https://example.com/products/*',
      'https://example.com/cart',
      'https://example.com/checkout'
    ],
    excluded: [
      'https://example.com/admin/*',
      'https://example.com/partner/*'
    ]
  },
  wcagLevel: 'AA',
  assistiveTechnologies: ['NVDA (Windows)', 'VoiceOver (Mac)'],
  platforms: ['Chrome 120+', 'Firefox 120+', 'Safari 17+']
};

Common Mistakes

• Not documenting exclusions clearly
• Testing only the homepage
• Using a sample that does not represent all templates
• Forgetting third-party content in scope
• Not specifying WCAG version (2.0, 2.1, 2.2)
• Including pages that require authentication without providing access
• Changing scope during the audit without documenting changes

Practice and Challenge

Practice 1: Define the scope for auditing a blog with 100 posts. Practice 2: Create a sampling strategy for a university site with 500 pages. Practice 3: List assistive technologies you would include in a scope. Practice 4: Write scope boundaries for a banking application audit. Practice 5: Identify three page types that are often missed in scope.

Challenge: A client wants an audit of their SaaS platform with 50 screens, 3 user roles (admin, manager, user), and both desktop and mobile views. Create a complete scope document including page selection strategy, WCAG level, assistive technologies, platforms, and exclusions.

FAQ

Mini Project

Create an audit scope template document that includes sections for: project overview, objectives, in-scope URLs, out-of-scope items, WCAG level, assistive technologies, platforms, browsers, sampling strategy, timeline, and constraints. Populate it for a sample retail website.

What's Next

Audit Criteria - WCAG AA covers the specific WCAG success criteria evaluated during an audit.