Challenge
Take nearly two decades of code, content, and designs that weren’t created with accessibility in mind, and create a process that would lead to AA accessibility compliance based on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).
The WCAG is 80+ rules of jargon and difficult-to-understand rules.
Solution
Make it easy.
Instead of putting the accessibility work solely on developers, we decided to empower each role in Product Development do their part to build accessible products.
How I helped
Rewrote the WCAG rules into plain language checklist items Grouped the items into discipline-specific sections: Dev, QA, Visual Design, UX Design, and Copy
Team
- Tyler Ramsey, Visual Designer
- Rochelle Turner, QA Manager
- Nicole Ely, QA Engineer
- Alice Hahn, UX Designer
- Danielle Pacheco, UX Designer
- Sara Deenanauth, Software Engineering Manager
- Adilene Constante, Software Engineer
- Brian Phillips, Software Engineering Manager
Process
The team went through all 80 WCAG rules and placed them into a spreadsheet.
Each discipline rewrote the rules in their craft’s "language," then I went through the final lists and copyedited them.
Recommendations
- Group and condense the rules
- Rewrite the rules and make them clearer
Outcome
Increased accessibility awareness across the organization and lowered the barrier of entry for building accessible products
