Accessibility Checks We Run on Every Site
by Tomas Reyes
Accessibility is not a final polish step. Retrofitting it is slow and expensive, and the people it affects are left waiting. We build the checks into the process so most problems never reach a client.
The automated pass
Automated tools catch roughly a third of issues: missing alt text, low contrast, unlabelled form fields and broken heading order. We run them on every pull request, and a failure blocks the merge.
The manual pass
The rest needs a human. Before every launch, one of us works through the full site with only a keyboard, then again with a screen reader. It takes about an hour and it reliably finds things the tools cannot.
- Can every interactive element be reached and used with the keyboard alone?
- Is the focus indicator always visible and in a logical order?
- Do links and buttons make sense when read out of context?
- Does the page still work at 200 percent zoom and in a narrow window?
Writing for everyone
Clear, plain language is an accessibility feature too. Short sentences, descriptive headings and meaningful link text help everybody, including the person reading on a bumpy train.
If it only works for the people who built it, it does not work yet.