9 Accessible Development
How to Build Accessibility Into the Development Process
As with any fundamental design constraint, accessibility is best included – and tested – at every stage of development. Good accessibility does not happen by accident. Building on a foundation of good accessibility will guide design decisions throughout the development process, with resulting impacts on visual presentation (e.g., colour contrast and layout) and overall flow and operation (e.g., navigation and wayfinding).
Accessibility standards
It is important to understand digital accessibility standards and how they apply to the work that you are going to do (e.g., website development, updates, app development). In addition to understanding digital accessibility principles in general, be familiar with your institution’s accessibility standards. Being familiar with these will allow you to integrate them into your guidelines and your general development process.
Institutional standards often represent a minimum level of accessibility, sometimes based on legal requirements. Digital accessibility and related guidelines (like WCAG) are continuously updating, reflecting a continuous process of improving accessibility, and in reaction to advancements in technology and web content development. As a result, you may feel that it is practical and forward-thinking to design to a higher level of accessibility than what is represented in your institution’s accessibility standards. In any case, it is essential to establish specific success criteria for accessibility design at the earliest stages of development.
Accessibility throughout development
Accessible design is best planned, implemented, and tested at every level of design. We have taken a generally hierarchical design model, with component, integration (or sub-system), and system levels of design. Simpler systems might not have meaningful distinctions between these levels; larger projects might have more levels of hierarchy. The principles and concepts discussed here can broadly be applied to both simpler and larger projects.
Broadly speaking, development has three levels:
- Component Level refers to individual widgets or controls, or components on a single webpage.
- Integration Level is an intermediate level of aggregation, looking at an entire webpage, or a single screen in an application.
- System Level refers to the entire system being developed – the whole website or application.
Component Level
At the component level, any control presented to the user needs to be accessible to alternative forms of access. For example, a user needs to be able to use their keyboard to switch between controls, as well as to operate them, unless there is a just reason not to allow it (e.g., a resource testing mousing accuracy). Most standard User Interface (UI) libraries offer keyboard-only functionality, with the ability to Tab between fields, buttons, etc. and the use of the keyboard to select from options, enter text and so forth.