Establishing a process that helps accessibility stick
Every so often, I work with a web designer who just gets accessibility. They have a gift for creating beautiful, accessible mockups with proper color contrast, clear focus states, and account for interactivity with assistive technology. But what happens when the product manager requests a last-minute change? Maybe the developer makes the update quickly, ships […]
Building accessibility skills across your team
I recently worked with an e-commerce client on a monthly accessibility audit. Each month, I would deliver a report of issues found, categorized by status: identified, fix implemented, and resolved. A few issues kept lingering. Month after month, the same items, same “identified” status. Never moving forward. I assumed they were low priority. But when […]
Building your accessibility tech stack
It’s very likely your team knows accessibility matters, but the same problems keep slipping through. Most of the time, this is because no one catches these problems until QA or, worse, production. You need reliable technology that surfaces accessibility issues so they can be fixed before your users find them. Here’s a good place to […]
What’s missing from your accessibility strategy?
I talked to the owner of an e-commerce shop last week who was frustrated. Their team had been “working on accessibility” off and on for two years, but nothing seemed to stick. When I asked what they’d tried, the answer was telling: “We bought an automated testing tool and ran some training workshops.” The problem […]
Making search failures less frustrating
Last week, I covered the basics of accessible site search: proper labels, announcing results, and structured output. But what about when search doesn’t go perfectly? Users make typos. They use different terminology than your site does. They search for things you don’t have. Good search design helps users before they fail and after they fail. […]
Site search that actually helps people find things
Site search is often an afterthought. Drop in a search box, wire it up to return results, and call it done. But search is critical for accessibility because it’s how many users bypass complex navigation entirely. A screen reader user on an e-commerce site isn’t going to drill through category menus. Most likely, they’ll reach […]
When to use breadcrumbs vs back buttons
At some point, users will need to navigate backward through your site. Two common patterns handle this: breadcrumbs and back buttons. Both patterns help users retrace their steps, but they work fundamentally differently, and choosing the wrong one can create confusion, especially for screen reader users who can’t see the visual hierarchy at a glance. […]
Do you need skip links on your site?
Skip links are one of those accessibility features most people have heard of. The “Add a skip to main content link” task appears on every accessibility checklist. So website owners dutifully add them, usually as the first focusable element on the page. But do you actually need one? And if you do, are you implementing it […]