WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

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Re: How long between accessibility test/audits?

for

From: Guy Hickling
Date: May 29, 2019 5:55PM

To emphasise what Scott has just said, test every release. Even if it's
just a one liner, the test team should automatically test its accessibility
at the same time as they test its functionality. Most large websites are
being updated constantly, so need testing each time, not leaving it to some
(probably quite mythical) annual audit by which time the important pages
have become unusable by many people anyway.

But even more importantly, have your developers learn how to produce
accessible markup, including ARIA, in the first place. They should not
simply correct what the testers throw back at them. Developers can learn it
easily. They are quite used to learning new skills - they do it all the
time. They learn HTML, CSS, JavaScript, React, Angular, WordPress,
whatever. Accessibility and ARIA are a lot easier to learn than some of
them! (and will be an extra skill on their CV as well).

Automated test tools can provide some help for the developers as well, of
course, but never forget automated tools can only ever pick up about 25% of
accessibility defects. You need human testing for every release.

Regards,
Guy Hickling