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2023 accessibility guide: How to complete website audits

 1 year ago
source link: https://www.pluralsight.com/resources/blog/software-development/complete-website-audit-guide-accessibility
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How to complete website audits

The goal of any accessibility audit is to uncover and remediate accessibility issues so disabled people can interact with websites or apps without barriers.

Many organizations run audits to check for common accessibility issues and ensure compliance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). Those farther along in their accessibility efforts may conduct web audits to test specific features or functions for certain communities like blind or low-vision customers.

Your objective will determine what type of audit you conduct, who does the testing, and what the audit includes.

An accessibility specialist understands the intricacies of creating accessible websites, apps, and products. Using their expertise, and potentially lived experience as a disabled person, they perform audits and advise tech teams to improve digital accessibility. 

They’re also familiar with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), WCAG, and other guidelines to ensure your organization stays compliant with accessibility regulations.

Hiring an accessibility specialist is one of the best ways to ensure your organization designs digital products and services that disabled people can use without limitations. As an internal employee, they’ll understand your organization, products, and services on a deeper level than a third-party auditor. They can also tailor their testing and recommendations to suit your specific needs. 

If you hire an internal accessibility specialist, make sure they have proper resources and support. If tech teams don’t implement their suggestions, your organization’s accessibility efforts will stall.

A third-party accessibility specialist takes on similar responsibilities to an internal consultant. They perform website audits, identify accessibility issues, and provide recommendations.

You can work with an individual consultant, but third-party specialists may also work in teams. As a result, they can test your website faster than a single in-house specialist. As a trade-off, they won’t understand your organization the way an internal employee would.

If you can’t afford to hire a full-time accessibility specialist but want the knowledge and expertise that only a trained professional can provide, turning to a third party can be a smart choice.

If you don’t have the resources to hire an internal or external accessibility specialist, a third option exists: upskilling. Upskilling gives your tech teams the skills and knowledge they need to build more accessible websites and products. Some of them may even discover a passion for it and decide to become an accessibility specialist full time.

At Pluralsight, we created a website accessibility academy to upskill our developers. Giving tech teams access to accessibility-focused learning paths is also a solid starting point.

These courses can help your technologists build and design accessible websites:

Job applications, shopping carts, and many other types of pages contain online forms. Without accessibility, disabled users can’t complete or submit these forms. 

When building online forms, ensure:

  • Form elements behave as expected

  • Form fields are marked and labeled appropriately  

  • Form elements are consistent across your website

  • Users get a warning before being timed out

  • Clear, helpful error messages are provided when forms are not filled in correctly

  • Users can review their answers before submitting a form

  • Images, charts, and tables in forms have text descriptions

Check that someone can navigate your pages without a mouse. Users navigating with keyboard commands won’t see a cursor on the screen, so they need another way to know which element they’re hovering over or selecting.

They also need to be able to navigate your website with the tabbing function (using the Tab key to move between elements). When tabbing, the order should make sense. For example, if a user tabs through a list, they should move through the list from top to bottom. 

Disabled users should also be able to skip directly to the main content on the page without tabbing through every element before it.

After completing an audit, tackling the list of known accessibility issues can feel overwhelming. Create a strategic plan to get started and make the most impact.

For each accessibility issue, consider:

  • How difficult will it be to fix this? Which people or teams do we need to involve?

  • How long will it take to fix this?

  • Does this issue impact essential functionality or services? Or does it impact out-of-date pages?

Answer these questions to prioritize your changes and develop a high-level accessibility roadmap.


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