Prioritizing issues after an audit comes down to two scoring factors: user impact and risk factor. User impact measures how much an issue affects people relying on assistive technologies. Risk factor measures the likelihood of the issue contributing to a complaint or lawsuit. Issues that score high on both move to the top of the remediation list.
A keyboard trap on a checkout flow blocks purchases and shows up frequently in legal claims, so it ranks high on both scales. A missing label on a decorative graphic in the footer affects fewer people and rarely appears in claims, so it sits lower in the queue. The audit report should already include severity ratings to support this decision.
The mistake to avoid is treating every issue as equal. Working through a report alphabetically or by page order wastes development cycles on minor items while serious problems stay live. Sort by severity, group similar issues so developers can fix patterns at once, and validate fixes before moving down the list. This approach moves a product toward WCAG 2.1 AA conformance faster and reduces exposure during the period when remediation is in progress.