Advocating For Accessibility Testing by F. Navarrette
Advocating For Accessibility Testing by F. Navarrette
Accessibility Proposal
Prepared for: AllTheHomes.com
Prepared by: Frank Navarrette, UX Design
December 11, 2021
An Overview of Accessibility
In the modern age, websites and applications on any platform are essential to navigate the
world. Millions of people with disabilities including physical/mobility impairments, blindness/low
vision, deafness/hearing loss, and cognitive/learning, among many others, require
accommodations to accomplish the same goals as those without disabilities (National Center
on Disability and Journalism, 2015). Sadly, the majority of the web is rife with barriers
preventing interaction with, or access to content — in other words, they’re not accessible.
Fortunately, designers and developers can progress towards centering accessibility by utilizing
the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) created by the World Wide Web Consortium
(W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), 2019). These guidelines are grounded in the four
principles of perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust, and are testable using three
levels of success criteria: A— minimal compliance, AA—above average compliance, and AAA
—maximum compliance (W3C Web Accessibility Initiative, 2021). Furthermore, by using
Universal Design, where products are created to be “accessed, understood and used to the
greatest extent possible by all people…” (National Disability Authority , 2020), designers can
ensure inclusion of all persons, regardless of ability status.
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Critical Aspects of Accessibility
In order to ensure a minimum level of compliance to the WCAG guidelines, the accessibility
principles listed below should be incorporated into web and mobile content.
1. Perceivable information and user interface
2. Operable user interface and navigation
3. Understandable information and user interface
4. Robust content and reliable interpretation
For a more in depth exposition on these principles, visit: www.w3.org/WAI/fundamentals/
accessibility-principles (Zahra, 2019).
Evaluating Accessibility
Many tools are available to evaluate the extent to which web content meets these standards on
a code-based level. While these tools are extremely useful, they are not adequate when it
comes to real world scenarios. For any website or application to exhibit true accessibility, it is
not suf cient to merely satisfy the above principles. People with disabilities must actually be
able to use and enjoy the content, and there is no better way to evaluate accessibility than to
implore usability testing. Recruiting participants with disabilities, who would ideally use their
own assistive technology to test your site or application. These tests or longitudinal studies
would be conducted similarly to any other usability test. They would use task based scenarios
speci cally focused on the accessible side of usability with participants who have disabilities
related to the focus of the study. Ideally, a mixture of code-checking tools and usability tests are
combined to maximize the evaluation of accessibility (Sherman, 2017).
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REFERENCES
Henry, S. L. (2021, December 6). Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Overview |
Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) | W3C. Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). https://
www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/wcag/
National Center on Disability and Journalism. (2015, September 12). Terms to Avoid When
Writing About Disability | National Center on Disability and Journalism. National Center on
Disability and Journalism | Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication
at Arizona State University. https://ncdj.org/2015/09/terms-to-avoid-when-writing-about-
disability/
National Disability Authority . (2020). What is Universal Design | Centre for Excellence in
Universal Design. The Centre for Excellence in Universal Design | Centre for Excellence in
Universal Design. https://universaldesign.ie/what-is-universal-design/
Rush, S. (2018, November 9). The Business Case for Digital Accessibility | Web Accessibility
Initiative (WAI) | W3C. Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). https://www.w3.org/WAI/business-
case/
Sherman, P. (2017). Lecture: An Accessibility Primer. In Sign In. Kent State University .
Retrieved December 11, 2021, from https://kent.instructure.com/courses/1983/pages/
lecture-s-universal-design-and-accessibility-testing?module_item_id=634829
W3C Web Accessibility Initiative. (2021, December 6). WCAG 2 FAQ | Web Accessibility
Initiative (WAI) | W3C. Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). https://www.w3.org/WAI/
standards-guidelines/wcag/faq/#start
W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) . (2019, May 10). Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
(WCAG) 2.1. World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/
Zahra, S. (2019, May 10). Accessibility Principles | Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) | W3C. Web
Accessibility Initiative (WAI). https://www.w3.org/WAI/fundamentals/accessibility-principles/