Developing accessible digital products requires a commitment to learning and implementing accessibility skills and best practices.
As a developer, you are critical to making state websites and applications accessible and you should be including accessibility as soon as you begin writing code.
Assessing and testing websites and applications for accessibility as you build them will ensure they function and display correctly for people with disabilities.
Your responsibilities
- Understand how to meet WCAG 2.1 AA, front-end accessibility development best practices, and testing processes.
- Build and test websites and applications that work for all users, including those with disabilities.
- Coding to standards is critical because it supports flexibility. For example, allowing users to set the width of the window so they can adjust the line length, or change the colors on the screen.
- Integrate accessibility acceptance criteria into user stories.
- Include compliance with state accessibility standards in the “definition of done” for all product increments.
- Include both automated and manual accessibility testing into development sprints.
- Understand the value of the Siteimprove or similar tools and use them, when possible, to assess and improve website accessibility.
- Understand forms labeling and controls.
Learn about developing for accessibility
Evaluate a website or application for accessibility
We cannot check all accessibility using a tool alone. Human judgment is required because automated tools may give inaccurate results.
Evaluate accessibility early and throughout the process to find and fix problems early. This will save you time and money in the long run.
Testing resources
- ICT Testing Baseline for Web Accessibility, US Access Board
- WCAG Compliance Checklist, A11yproject
- Easy Checks – A First Review of Web Accessibility, W3C
- How to Meet WCAG (Quick Reference), W3C
Evaluation tools
Do you work for the City of Portland? Use our resources on the employee intranet.