Fact: Most accessibility fixes are relatively simple and inexpensive to implement if you stick to basics i.e., using native HTML elements over custom interactive elements. Moreover, integrating it into the design process itself takes care of lot of foreseeable accessibility issues that occurs during the development phase. But if you keep on waiting for the magic to happen on its own – then you will definitely be late to the party for fixing – which will take a lot of planning to tackle the issues that will occur

Fact: It’s like saying all the vehicles will drive themselves, driver need not have to worry! Lol

Note: Yes, I know that’s possible in some vehicles now! But you get the point, right?

While assistive technologies can help people with disabilities to access the content, they DO NOT guarantee accessibility. Whatever the assistive technology picks it picks up from the underlying code behind the elements. It’s not like Aladdin’s magical lamp, that you rub it and things come true! Developers, Designers and Content Writers need to make sure the content is designed, written and coded keeping accessibility in mind.

For example, a button needs to be identified with a role of button because the screen reader can’t dream of it to be a button! So, if you code a button as <button>Hit me</button>, the assistive technology like screen reader will identify it as “Hit me, button.”

If you design a button that has very poor contrast, someone with low vision or color blindness won’t be able to perceive the button clearly. 

Similarly, if you are designing an accordion which show/hide the content, wherein though visually the content is available but you forget to remove aria-hidden attribute when content is visible or forget to change the value to “false”, then you are asking for trouble! A screen reader will not be able to access that content if aria-hidden is still present with a value of “true”. 

Fact: This is one of my favorites. I have seen so many developers slapping a tabindex=”0” on the neutral containers like <span> or <div> to create the custom interactive elements and forget to provide the necessary scripting. Reality check – tabindex attribute will only make the element focusable! You will have to provide the required event handlers along with the key listeners to make the element functional. Remember basics More importantly, people love tabindex=”0” so much that they go in and give it to non-interactive elements too assuming that screen readers use Tab to read content.

Fact: What’s the purpose of an interactive element? To perform an action – correct? If my interactive element is coded as <div tabindex=”0”>Activate Me!</div> to which all the required scripts are provided that makes it actionable using different input devices; my job’s done right? Answer is – you guessed it right, NO! How will a person using a screen reader understand the element is in fact actionable? Should they keep on guessing and activating the elements to understand if they are interactive? Sounds wrong right? Then define role! Role is an important piece of information that helps screen reader users understand the nature of element – like button, links, radio button, checkbox and so on.

Fact: This is another of my favorites. If there’s no space to provide a visual text – provide aria-label to specify the accessible name. So easy, right? Wrong, providing aria-label means you have to hard code the accessible names! Remember? then developers complain about accessibility is a time-consuming process? Most of the sites use template logic wherein the structure will be set and based on the requirement additions/subtraction happens. But if you can utilize the visual text that is already available then why not? If it’s a form field, then a developer can definitely use title attribute to provide the accessible name. Remember, aria-label again is only available for a screen reader user – remember Myth number 6 we explored earlier? So, there is alternative like using aria-labelledby to provide an accessible name using the visual text that is already available.