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Re: Thoughts on citing multiple WCAG criteria for one issue

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From: Tim Harshbarger
Date: Nov 18, 2019 3:23AM

I think there may be a couple reasons why listing all the relevant success criteria for an element might be the better approach.

I think one reason it is attractive just to let a single success criterion to stand in for others is because we guess that fixing that one issue will fix all the other success criteria we would have listed for the same element. However, project teams can be quite imaginative in how they solve accessibility issues and it is possible that they might implement a solution that only fixes the criterion you listed--and none of the criteria you chose not to list. Unfortunately, that puts us in a situation where we have to return to the project team to let them know about additional accessibility defects of which they were unaware.

I think the other reason is educational. For example, if they have an image link without alt text, citing multiple issues (even though you can fix multiple issues with one approach) teaches them that images need alternative text and links need accessible text--if they pick up on that information, that is something they can use in the future to avoid either type of issue.

I'm not saying there is no reason for taking the other approach or the other approach always creates problems, but that it seems to me that listing all the relevant issues for an element might be the better approach.

Thanks,
Tim Harshbarger
Senior Accessibility Consultant
Deque Systems