How can you educate your team on web accessibility during a code review?

- Get an accessibility audit - Audit, fix and sustain - Test with actual users - Consider exceptions - Support Keyboard navigations - Hear voice over and try to understand content of the website - Semantic markup - Use alternative text for images and non text content - Use labels or instuctions with form elements - Design usable focus states - Don't use color alone to make critical information understandable - Add enough color contrast - Follow WCAG guidelines - Use area labels where text that could label the element is not visible - Use heading tags Understand your audience and make your website accessible based on their needs.

All coders and designers should be familiar with WCAG, WAI, and Section 508 Guidelines as fundamentals. Before any content is launched, the content needs to have accessibility review as a critical phase of the QA process. Tools alone cannot ensure accessibility, those who review the content need to be able to identify and resolve issues as needed. Alternate content should be made available that is accessible if the native content is too complex such as a written explanation describing a complex infographic. While accessibility may seem to hinder the development and creative processes, it not only makes content accessible to a broader audience, it is a mandate for some customers.

- Awareness Building: Emphasize the impact of accessibility on users, especially those with disabilities. - Tool Integration: Encourage the use of linters or browser extensions to identify accessibility issues in code. - Code Review Focus: During reviews, specifically check for semantic HTML, proper use of ARIA attributes, and keyboard navigation. - Resource Sharing: Share relevant accessibility guidelines and tutorials to empower developers. - Positive Feedback: Frame feedback positively, suggesting improvements rather than solely pointing out errors. - Training Sessions - Cultural Integration: Foster a culture where accessibility is considered integral to delivering a quality product for all users.

Checklist and to do task these are the thing that not only important for the review but it is in a good practice to evaluate any of your work or task. Adding such task to align your codebase for A11 standard, w3 standard and a good alignment for SEO and special manner accessibility for your web page are crucial and according to me a must have SOP for such meetings.

1. Set accessibility standards. 2. Conduct accessibility training. 3. Define specific accessibility criteria. 4. Include accessibility experts in reviews. 5. Use automated accessibility testing tools. 6. Promote an accessibility mindset. 7. Conduct regular accessibility check-ins. 8. Provide constructive feedback. 9. Share accessibility resources. 10. Share real-world accessibility examples. 11. Include accessibility in acceptance criteria. 12. Encourage self-testing for accessibility. 13. Implement peer mentoring for accessibility education.

This is a serious problem most of the time developers who are coding for the web pages or web applications are not more concern about the accessibility and errors and alerts part so during code review it is very important to have an assessment over these points the tools are mentioned here are quite sufficient in order to complete your assessment for accessibility and existing alerts resolving them not only can contribute in a good SEO but also it will turn a game changer for the audience who is specifically depend on accessing your web application in some special manner.

There are several tools available for checking web accessibility, ranging from automated tools to manual testing with assistive technologies. Here are some popular tools: Lighthouse: Type: Automated Testing Google Accessibility Developer Tools: Type: Browser Extension axe Accessibility Checker: Type: Browser Extension, Command Line WAVE (Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool): Type: Browser Extension, Online Tool Pa11y: Type: Command Line, Web Interface JAWS (Job Access With Speech): Type: Screen Reader NVDA (NonVisual Desktop Access): Type: Screen Reader VoiceOver: Type: Screen Reader Accessibility Insights: Type: Browser Extension, Windows App Tenon.io: Type: Online Tool, API

When developers discuss accessibility, they often focus on achieving a specific number in a tool like axe to create the best accessible site. However, as I gained expertise in web accessibility, I realized it's not just about hitting a number in a tool. True web accessibility means considering people who can't see, hear, or those with temporary disabilities. For instance, many internet carousels aren't accessible for blind users. If you turn on voiceover, it might announce the slide number but won't describe what the slide contains.

Creating user stories and connect your developers and empathetically to the user stories are such parts that need not to be exposed during code review. but it can be explained at a very initial point. for example you can explain it to the UI UX stage where the UX researcher or the UI designers could be a part of the discussion and explain why they have implemented a particular feature so that developers now aware of the user story and accordingly they can develop. The frontend developer can put some more efficient way to handle the scenario as well as backend developers also be aware of the scenario and can validate the things at their end.

Most of the developers, unfortunately, don't take accessibility seriously. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), over 2 billion people live with a disability, and 15% of the world’s population has some sort of disability. The best way to illustrate this is to make a small demo to your team and show them how important is to implement those simple things in their code. A small example of CSS code for color-blind people: body { background: #f4f4f4; color: #333; } header { background: #007acc; color: #fff; padding: 10px; text-align: center; } nav a { color: #fff; text-decoration: none; } footer { background: #007acc; color: #fff; padding: 10px; text-align: center; }

While developer tools can be helpful, it's not the full story. The best experience is gained by using the real-world accessibility tools to understand content on the screen, complete tasks, and perform navigation. It's an illuminating experience that cannot be replaced.

It's essential to educate your team on web accessibility by providing guidelines, highlighting issues, suggesting solutions, and emphasizing the impact of accessibility improvements. Encourage testing and peer learning, share resources, and make accessibility a part of coding standards for a more inclusive development process.

We usually receive feedback on web accessibility from product owners, UX professionals, or clients. However, the most valuable insights come from individuals with permanent, temporary, or situational disabilities. Nowadays, there are specialized companies offering web accessibility services with diverse teams of people facing different disabilities. Collaborating with these experts ensures the creation of highly accessible software.

Accessible websites make more people feel included, enhance SEO, resulting in happier users and better outcomes for businesses and society. Investing time in web accessibility is crucial. Recognize exclusion, understand diversity, and begin by solving problems for one person, then extend those solutions to help many. Exclusions can be related to touch, vision, hearing, thinking, or movement. Diversity might be temporary, lasting, or situational. The key is to find solutions that work for one person and can benefit many others.

Website or WebApp projects can be frustrating when it comes a lot of changes at the later phase. I was also getting the same issue so I have set up a rule that no coding could be start before UI UX and design part confirmation. Also I convey this message to my clients that you cannot change the functionality or add a new feature after UI UX approval. This not only give the psychological support but also a flexibility to the developers that they need not to add a new feature during the development until or unless it is not very necessary. Also it reduce the brainstorm part a lot that only during the architectural review fixed the UI UX part and a complete project can run very smoothly.

In my experience, a large number of people (e.g. designers, developers, engineers, product) have never experienced a bad example compared to a good experience. How to define that experience? Shadow someone who relies on Accessibility features and the impact.