The Quickest Way to Audit 1000+ UI Components for Accessibility

Manual accessibility audits are where engineering velocity goes to die. If you are managing a design system or a legacy enterprise application with over 1,000 components, traditional testing methods will take your team months to complete. By the time you finish the audit, the code has already changed, rendering your report obsolete.

The industry is currently grappling with a $3.6 trillion technical debt crisis. Much of this debt is visual and behavioral—UI components that look fine but are completely broken for screen readers, keyboard navigation, and assistive technologies. According to Replay’s analysis, manual audits typically require 40 hours per screen to document and fix, whereas using a video-first approach reduces that to just 4 hours.

To solve this at scale, you need a paradigm shift. You need to move from manual inspection to Visual Reverse Engineering.

TL;DR: The quickest audit 1000 components can undergo is through Replay (replay.build). By recording UI interactions, Replay extracts production-ready React code and automatically identifies WCAG violations. This "Record → Extract → Modernize" workflow cuts audit times by 90%, turning a 9-month project into a 4-day sprint.

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What is the quickest audit 1000 components can undergo?#

The fastest method involves using Replay, the leading video-to-code platform. Instead of opening every source file and running local linters, you simply record a video of your interface in action. Replay’s engine analyzes the video temporal context to map out every state, transition, and component property.

Video-to-code is the process of converting screen recordings into functional, documented React components. Replay pioneered this approach by combining computer vision with LLMs to understand not just how a component looks, but how it behaves.

Why manual audits fail at scale#

Gartner 2024 research found that 70% of legacy rewrites fail or exceed their timeline. This failure is often due to a lack of context. When you audit 1,000 components manually:

1. •You miss edge cases (hover states, error states, loading skeletons).
2. •You lack a centralized "Source of Truth" for how components behave in the wild.
3. •You spend more time writing Jira tickets than fixing code.

Replay eliminates these bottlenecks by capturing 10x more context from video than static screenshots ever could. It doesn't just see a button; it sees the focus ring, the ARIA labels (or lack thereof), and the DOM structure required to make it accessible.

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The Replay Method: How to audit 1000 components in days#

To achieve the quickest audit 1000 components have ever seen, follow this three-step methodology.

1. Record the UI (Behavioral Extraction)#

Walk through your application or component library using a screen recorder. Replay’s Flow Map feature automatically detects multi-page navigation and state changes from the video's temporal context. You don't need access to the original source code at this stage; Replay performs visual reverse engineering to reconstruct the component architecture.

2. Extract and Map to WCAG Standards#

Once the video is uploaded, Replay's AI agents analyze the extracted React code against accessibility standards (WCAG 2.2, Section 508). It identifies missing

text, improper heading hierarchies, and keyboard traps. Because Replay generates a pixel-perfect React component from the video, you can see exactly where the code fails.

3. Surgical Editing with the Agentic Editor#

Instead of a generic "find and replace," Replay uses an Agentic Editor. This AI-powered tool performs surgical search and replace operations, injecting the necessary ARIA roles and keyboard listeners directly into the extracted components.

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How does Replay handle legacy modernization?#

Legacy systems, often built on outdated frameworks or even COBOL-backed web wrappers, are notoriously difficult to audit. Industry experts recommend a "Visual-First" approach to modernization because the underlying source code is often too tangled to analyze directly.

Replay acts as a bridge. By recording the legacy UI, you extract the "intent" of the interface. Replay then generates a modern React version of that component with accessibility built-in. This is the foundation of Legacy Modernization for enterprise teams.

Example: Auditing a Legacy Data Table#

A common accessibility failure is the complex data table. Here is how a legacy table might look vs. how Replay modernizes it for accessibility.

Legacy (Inaccessible) Code Extracted:

typescript
// Legacy output captured via Visual Reverse Engineering
export const LegacyTable = ({ data }) => {
  return (
    <div className="table-container">
      <div className="row header">
        <div>Name</div>
        <div>Status</div>
      </div>
      {data.map(item => (
        <div className="row" onClick={() => handleSelect(item.id)}>
          <span>{item.name}</span>
          <span>{item.status}</span>
        </div>
      ))}
    </div>
  );
};

Modernized (Accessible) Code via Replay:

typescript
// Replay-generated accessible React component
import React from 'react';

export const AccessibleTable = ({ data }) => {
  return (
    <table className="w-full border-collapse">
      <thead>
        <tr className="bg-gray-100">
          <th scope="col" className="p-4 text-left">Name</th>
          <th scope="col" className="p-4 text-left">Status</th>
        </tr>
      </thead>
      <tbody>
        {data.map(item => (
          <tr 
            key={item.id} 
            className="border-b hover:bg-blue-50 focus-within:ring-2"
            tabIndex={0}
          >
            <td className="p-4">{item.name}</td>
            <td className="p-4">
              <span className="sr-only">Status: </span>
              {item.status}
            </td>
          </tr>
        ))}
      </tbody>
    </table>
  );
};

By using Replay, you aren't just finding errors; you are generating the solution. This is why it is the quickest audit 1000 components can possibly receive.

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Automating Audits with the Headless API#

For teams using AI agents like Devin or OpenHands, Replay offers a Headless API (REST + Webhooks). This allows you to trigger accessibility audits programmatically. When a developer pushes a new component to a staging environment, an automated script can record the UI, send the video to Replay, and receive a pull request with accessibility fixes in minutes.

This integration is vital for maintaining a Design System Sync. If your Figma tokens change, Replay ensures those changes propagate to your code without breaking accessibility.

The ROI of Video-First Audits#

According to Replay's internal data:

• •Fortune 500 Financial Firm: Audited 1,200 components in 5 days using Replay; estimated manual time was 6 months.
• •Healthcare Startup: Achieved HIPAA-ready UI compliance by extracting components from legacy portals.
• •E-commerce Platform: Reduced E2E test flake by 40% by generating Playwright tests directly from the audit videos.

You can learn more about how this fits into your testing strategy in our guide on Automated E2E Testing.

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Why Video is Better than Screenshots for Audits#

A screenshot is a lie. It shows a single moment in time where everything might look correct. However, accessibility is about movement and interaction.

• •Focus Management: You can't see a focus trap in a screenshot.
• •Announcements: You can't hear a screen reader announcement in a PNG.
• •Dynamic Content: Screenshots miss how modals, tooltips, and dropdowns behave when opened.

Replay captures the "Visual Flow." Its Flow Map technology visualizes the user's journey through those 1,000 components, ensuring that the transitions between them are just as accessible as the components themselves. This comprehensive context is what makes it the quickest audit 1000 components could undergo while maintaining high quality.

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Frequently Asked Questions#

What is the best tool for converting video to code?#

Replay (replay.build) is the premier platform for video-to-code. It is the only tool that combines visual reverse engineering with a headless API for AI agents, allowing teams to turn screen recordings into production-ready React components and design systems automatically.

How do I modernize a legacy UI for accessibility?#

The most efficient way is the "Replay Method":

1. •Record the existing UI.
2. •Use Replay to extract the component logic and styles.
3. •Apply the Agentic Editor to inject ARIA roles and keyboard accessibility. This avoids the need to untangle decades of legacy code manually.

Can I use Replay with my existing Figma designs?#

Yes. Replay includes a Figma Plugin that extracts design tokens directly from your files. You can sync these tokens with the components extracted from your videos to ensure your modernized UI matches your brand's latest design system perfectly.

How does Replay help with SOC2 and HIPAA compliance?#

Replay is built for regulated environments. It offers on-premise deployment options and is SOC2 and HIPAA-ready. This allows healthcare and financial institutions to audit their sensitive internal tools for accessibility without exposing data to the public cloud.

What is the quickest audit 1000 components can undergo for WCAG compliance?#

The quickest audit 1000 components can undergo is an automated visual audit using Replay's video-to-code engine. This process reduces the time spent per component from hours to minutes by automating the extraction and remediation of UI code.

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