Название: The Web Accessibility Project : Development and Testing Best Practices
Автор: Narayanan Palani
Издательство: CRC Press
Год: 2023
Страниц: 231
Язык: английский
Формат: pdf (true), epub (true)
Размер: 19.9 MB

Approximately 15% of the global population is affected by some sort of disability, according to the World Report on Disability. Many C-Suite executives perceive digital accessibility (DA) as an endless task. Among the engineering leaders, one in four leaders are reliant on very limited knowledge about digital accessibility. Many countries are increasing their legislative efforts to make web accessibility an important part in web development and testing of software releases. Numerous organizations are facing extreme turbulence when not adhering to international accessibility guidelines while developing their software’s and website applications.

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) is a global guide on accessibility recommendations that are developed through the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to help organizations to meet minimum standard accessibility guidelines. It has become critical for every organization to focus on implementing the accessibility checks at every stage of their application development to avoid costly mistakes. Meanwhile, the need for front-end engineers and Quality Assurance (QA) test analysts to learn WCAG best practices is immensely important for the growing need to incorporate accessibility-focused inclusive design, development, and extensive accessibility testing, which are essential for most of the customer-facing websites.

In a fast-paced world, incorporating shift left accessibility within development and testing is the new normal. The Web Accessibility Project: Development and Testing Best Practices helps developers address right accessibility attributes to user interface (UI) components. It also helps developers focus on developing manual and automation tests for QA professionals to inject accessibility audit, accessibility functional tests, and accessibility automation tests as part of their Continuous Integration and Continuous Development (CI/CD) models. The book is filled with readily usable best practices to adapt web accessibility early in application development.

Web Accessibility is a very important best practice to improve the usability of websites, hence users with disabilities of some sort will make use of it when accessing. Approximately 20% of global population belong to these special users’ category who need assistive technologies to access websites, such as contact lenses and screen readers (e.g., JAWS, NVDA). Since technology is meant for everyone, applications should be developed by having accessibility in mind.

Most of us face some sort of vision problems with aging, hence accessibility is for everyone. Visual disabilities such as color blindness, low vision, partial or full blindness are just some of the disabilities. Users with hearing disabilities, such as partial hearing loss or deafness also needs to be addressed with better accessibility when accessing websites. Physical disabilities such as motor control diseases and speech challenges also hinder users' abilities and hence they opt for assistive technologies to access websites.

By applying the accessibility best practices covered in this book, developers can help their organizations rise to a whole new level of accessibility adherence, innovation, and inclusive design. They will also see greater work satisfaction in their professional lives and a way to help improve digital accessibility for end users.