What is accessibility?
Danielle started off by looking at a definition of accessibility, specifically that:
The product should be available to as many people as possible on as many devices as possible, including screen readers.
Why build accessible websites?
Danielle quickly discussed the importance of building accessible websites — not just because it’s a legal requirement but because it’s the right thing to do. We should be driven by empathy rather than just the law. She also looked briefly at terminology and the importance of using the correct language.
Accessibility during project stages
Danielle discussed key project stages and what accessibility tasks should be incorporated during each project stage. Key tasks for accessibility discovery are:
Determine what accessibility guidelines you will follow (WCAG 2.0 AA, WCAG 2.1 AA, ATAG, etc.)
Identify accessibility expert
Define your tooling
Automated testing tools: WAVE, aXe, ANDI, etc.
Command line tool: pa11y
Manual testing tools: keyboard, mouse, screen reader (VoiceOver, JAWS, etc.), speech-to-text
Gain alignment on best practices across the team — project manager, business analyst, developers, designers, QA, and UX/usability staff should all be involved
Begin educating client on content accessibility best practices
Accessibility should also be a key consideration during the design phase. Your accessibility expert can work with designers and UX experts from the design concept stage, reviewing designs as they progress. In addition, user testing of designs should include persons with disabilities.
During development, accessibility should also be front of mind. As the backlog is refined, include accessibility acceptance criteria and incorporate accessibility into the solution direction. As the tickets move to QA, they should be tested for accessibility as a separate QA step. These tests should cover both manual and automated testing.
The final accessibility stage comes during user acceptance testing (UAT), when an accessibility expert should conduct a final audit on the site, with any issues noted in an audit report.
Accessibility roundtable discussion
We then moved into the roundtable section of the session, with our frontend expert Alan Cole and our content expert Philipa Martin. You can view the presentation and the roundtable discussion below.