Alliya – Accessibility Audit Tool – Hugo Maia Design

Alliya is a free accessibility audit tool designed to help designers, developers and website owners quickly understand how accessible a web page is.

The product allows users to insert a website URL, run an automated audit and receive an accessibility score, key issues and a WCAG-aligned summary based on Lighthouse checks.

The goal was to make accessibility testing feel less technical, more approachable and easier to act on.

The Problem

Accessibility is often treated as something complex, technical or only relevant at the end of a project. Many small teams, freelancers and business owners do not know where to start, what to check or how to interpret accessibility issues.

Existing tools can be powerful, but they often feel too technical for non-specialists. The challenge was to create a simple entry point: a tool that gives users a fast overview of accessibility problems without overwhelming them.

Research & Insight

Before exploring potential solutions, I wanted to better understand how people currently approach accessibility testing and where the biggest pain points existed. To do this, I conducted exploratory interviews with designers, front-end developers and website owners, while also reviewing some of the most widely used accessibility auditing tools available today.

Although participants had different levels of technical expertise, their experiences were surprisingly similar. Most understood the importance of accessibility and recognised its growing relevance, yet very few felt confident evaluating it themselves.

Designers often relied on assumptions or occasional manual checks during the design process. Developers typically used tools such as Lighthouse or axe DevTools but described the reports as difficult to communicate to non-technical stakeholders. Website owners and small business operators frequently admitted they had no reliable way of understanding whether their websites were accessible or not.

To better understand the existing landscape, I analysed several accessibility auditing solutions including Lighthouse, WAVE and axe DevTools. While these tools provide comprehensive and valuable reports, they often prioritise technical depth over clarity. Large amounts of data, technical terminology and lengthy issue lists made it difficult for less experienced users to identify priorities and understand what actions to take.

Across both interviews and competitor analysis, three recurring themes emerged:

Users wanted a quick indication of their website’s accessibility health.
Users struggled to prioritise issues and determine what should be fixed first.
Users wanted guidance and learning resources, not just technical reports.

One insight became particularly clear throughout the research: users were not looking for a more powerful auditing platform. They were looking for a clearer starting point.

Before diving into detailed reports, participants consistently wanted answers to four simple questions:

Is my website accessible?
What are the most important issues?
How serious are those issues?
What should I do next?

This insight became the foundation of Alliya. Rather than creating another feature-heavy accessibility platform, the opportunity was to design a lightweight experience capable of delivering immediate clarity.

UX Approach

The experience was designed around one primary action: inserting a URL and running an audit.

Instead of creating a multi-step flow, the interface keeps the process direct and focused. Users can choose between mobile and desktop checks, start the analysis and immediately understand the result through a visible accessibility score and issue summary.

The interface also separates automated results from manual review. This was important because automated tools cannot fully certify accessibility. By clearly stating that the report is WCAG-aligned but not a formal certification, the product sets the right expectation and avoids false confidence.

Information Architecture

The content was organised into a simple structure:

URL input
Device selection
Analyze action
Accessibility score
Issue summary
References to fix problems
Full Lighthouse report link

This structure supports a clear mental model: check, understand, improve.

The references section was added to help users move from diagnosis to action, connecting them with trusted resources such as WCAG, ARIA Authoring Practices, WebAIM, MDN and Deque axe rules.

UI Direction

The visual direction is intentionally minimal. The interface avoids unnecessary decoration and keeps attention on the audit task.

The design uses a clean layout, direct labels and a focused form structure to reduce friction. The goal was not to make accessibility feel intimidating, but to make the first step feel simple and accessible in itself.

Development

The product was built as a lightweight web tool with performance and clarity in mind.

The audit experience is powered by automated accessibility checks mapped from Lighthouse, with links to deeper reporting and external references for users who need more detail.

The implementation focuses on fast interaction, responsive behaviour and a straightforward flow from input to result.

Outcome

Alliya turns accessibility auditing into a simpler and more approachable experience. It does not try to replace a full manual audit, but it gives users a useful starting point to identify issues, understand priorities and improve their websites with more confidence.

The project reflects my interest in product design, accessibility, usability and development, creating tools that simplify technical topics and make them easier for people to understand and act on.