At a glance
Use the inventory to find the work, then prioritize by the reader’s task, consequence of a barrier, frequency of use and whether the document is current. Page counts help estimate capacity after the scope is chosen. A small essential application form can deserve earlier attention than a long archive report.
This is a decision worksheet, not a legal priority score.
| Document | Reader task | First action |
|---|---|---|
| 2-page application | Apply for an essential service | Test the complete form journey |
| 8-page current notice | Understand a time-sensitive change | Review source and alternative promptly |
| 120-page superseded report | Historical reference | Confirm retention and owner before work |
Scroll sideways to see all columns. Use arrow keys when the table is focused.
Decide what belongs in the queue
Ask the owner whether the source is current, required for a live service and still intentionally published. Keep archive or retention decisions separate from accessibility fixes; removing a file without an owner decision can break a useful record.
Group exact duplicates for source work, but preserve all publication locations. Identify the current authored source when possible. Fixing a recurring defect in the authoring template can reduce repeated work on future documents, while a one-off repair addresses only one revision.
- Name the document owner and reader task.
- Confirm the current source revision and publication need.
- Group identical sources but keep every live URL.
- Record the initial review and its limits.
Use simple, explainable priority categories
Choose categories your team can apply consistently: essential or time-sensitive task, frequently used current information, and lower-use material needing an owner decision. Add actual analytics or service evidence when available; do not invent usage data from a filename.
Include reported reader barriers and whether a usable alternative already exists. Advisory complexity can help assign a specialist, but it cannot establish task importance or conformance. If evidence is missing, put an owner review in the queue rather than awarding a low priority by default.
- Impact: what happens if a reader cannot use it?
- Use: what evidence says people need it now?
- Source: can the authored version be corrected?
- Route: reviewed HTML, corrected PDF or specialist work?
- Owner: who can approve the exact output?
Plan a pilot before extrapolating effort
Review representative documents from the selected scope and measure actual handling and verification time. Use the project-time tool with those assumptions, keeping review overhead and team capacity explicit. A sampled label should not silently determine a project’s duration.
Each completed queue item needs the source revision, output revision, checks performed, unresolved findings and approval or escalation decision. Revisit priority after a new request, source update or reader complaint. A backlog is a maintained work record, not a one-time count.
Sources and scope
Methods, worksheets and illustrative examples are DocAccessible editorial contributions. These references support the technical or product details described above. W3C techniques are informative guidance; they are not a certification scheme.
- DocAccessible PDF inventory
The counting workflow, report options and purchase boundary.
- W3C: evaluating web accessibility
Automated tools and knowledgeable human evaluation serve different roles.
- DocAccessible remediation options
The different output paths and their review requirements.
Written by the DocAccessible team under our editorial policy. Suggest a correction if a source or product detail needs updating.