People of all abilities should have first-class access to code and coding. In order to achieve this it is vital that we build our application to be accessible to all. All client code should strive to meet our accessibility standards.
It shouldn't be difficult for us to build accessible frontends providing we follow these key points:
- Challenge designs. Accessibility outweighs aesthetics. If you don't believe a design is accessible then raise this.
- Write semantic HTML. This is the foundation of good accessibility, assistive technology is built to understand these semantics.
- Use labels. Don't assume the user will be able to infer the meaning of an image or input based on its visual design.
- Use ARIA where required. Sometimes semantics aren't enough, ARIA attributes can be used to ensure content is still accessible. See this guide for using ARIA.
- Manually test for accessibility. Ensure your frontend code can be navigated easily using a keyboard. Learn to effectively use a screen reader and check for issues. Read about the importance of manual accessibility testing.
- Make good use of the Wildcard component library. These components are designed and build specifically with accessibility in mind. Often it may be better utilise these components instead of reimplementing a similar design.
There is a lot of useful tooling to help us catch and fix acccessibility issues in our code.
- eslint-plugin-jsx-a11y. Statically analyze our JSX for potential accessibility violations.
- @storybook/addon-a11y. This addon uses axe-core to audit rendered components and raise accessibility issues. It also has some useful features to simulate vision impairments such as blurred vision and color blindness.
- Lighthouse allows you to run accessibility audits anywhere.
- Browser Accessibility DevTools in Chrome and Firefox.