WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

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Re: most important ARIA

for

From: Jeff Gutsell
Date: Jan 2, 2019 9:32AM

David,

I love your question. Everyone who cares about Web accessibility should encourage developers to "keep accessibility in mind." I think a lot of developers feel like this a subject that is very time-consuming to master. We can show them that the most important points are not all that difficult.

You should encourage your developers to read the articles at webaim.org and the accessibility overviews at the Mozilla Developers Network.
Just as Brandon said, ARIA should be a last resort in achieving accessibility. These sites do great jobs proving this.

If you have developers who really want to get their hands dirty with some ARIA, I would suggest the "aria-label" and "aria-labeledby" attributes. You could use these to show the importance of learning the ordinary html solutions that should be tried before using them.
I have encountered two developers recently who seem to be much more supportive of following best practices once I persuaded them that most of the basics are not particularly difficult or time-consuming. They do involve being disciplined to stick to some best practices and avoid some old habits.

Jeff Gutsell