An ADA and accessibility checklist for web developers
- Improve legibility for visually-impaired and colorblind users by ensuring all text meets contrast ratio requirements. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) recommend at least a 4.5 to 1 contrast ratio for normal text.
- All multimedia (
<img>,<audio>,<video>) elements should have alt text describing the content for the visual- or audio-impaired to access via screen-reader or other assistive technologies. - Descriptive link text (“Click here to see search results”) instead of generic link text (“Click here”) because some screen readers have settings to only read the links available on a page.
- HTML5 section elements are used for applicable content types to enable browser accessibility tools & screen readers
<header>once per page inside of<body>tag, denotes header. Different from the<head>tag with page title, meta info, etc.<nav>once per page, denotes navigation bar. Should not be a standard “div”.<main>once per page, denotes main body for “jump to Main” accessibility features<article>many times per page, denotes independent, self-contained content (eg. Location Search result). Does it make sense without surrounding context?<section>many times per page, denotes related content (eg. Each column within a data table)<footer>once per page, denotes footer- Headings (
<h1>,<h2>, etc) used to represent information hierarchy <figure>used where data visualization elements necessary, and<figcaption>provides description<input>fields have appropriate<label>s to indicate expected data type and parameters, id="" and name="" fields. Example date input:<input type="date" id="pickdate" name="date"></input>- Radio button forms are surrounded by
<fieldset>, include a<legend>description (not a<p>), and each<input id="">option has a corresponding<label for=””>that matches the<input>’s id. - Standardized times / dates with HTML5 “datetime” attribute, e.g.:
<time datetime="2020-03-20">Thursday, March 12th</time>
- Add keyboard shortcuts to navigation items
- E.g., make nav items keyboard accessible
<nav><button accesskey="l">Home</button></nav> - Make navigations tab accessible
- E.g. When navigating to site for the first time, hit TAB to focus an item on the nav bar
<nav><button tabindex="1">Home</button><button tabindex="2">Menu</button></nav>- Tip: adding tabindex attribute enables the CSS pseudoclass ":focus" to apply styles to the currently-focused item, like a highlight.
- Glossary of terms and acronyms accessible from app footer
- FAQ/Info/Tooltips available to describe specific functionalities that may not be obvious to naïve user