axe-core VS pa11y

The reports often rank the issues by severity level and provide actionable solutions. Using these reports, developers can prioritize accessibility fixes and improve their products' accessibility. Popular examples of automated testing tools include Axe, WAVE, and SiteImprove. Also, most modern browsers offer built-in accessibility audits within their developer tools.

‌Videos To caption videos, HTML is a great option. But if you are using markdown, you can embed videos from YouTube and Vimeo using the tag. These apps offer in-built caption support so you can enable captions before adding the embed code.

You could also install third-party plugins for this purpose.

Here’s another tip: avoid flashing content in your videos as it could lead to seizure triggers. If your video has flashing bright colours, ensure that it does not exceed two times within a second.

Add transcripts to audios and videos

It’s a good idea to add transcripts to your audio and video content. Not everyone will want to watch or listen to the content. But they may be curious to know what it is about.

By adding a transcript, you make it easier for anyone to navigate through the content and get the information that they need.

Transcript for audio
For audio content, you can insert transcripts using HTML.

Here’s an example:

 controls muted> 
   src="ringtone.mp3" type="audio/mpeg"> 
 

 
  
Here is a transcription of the text 
  00:03 = I am going to be productive today

 
  00:05 = I am going to be productive today

 
  00:08 = I am going to be productive today

 
  00:10 = I need to be productive today

 
  00:11 = I have to be productive today

 
  00:13 = I should be productive today

 
  00:16 = I am going to be productive today

 
  00:18 = I ought to be productive today

 
  00:21 = I have to be productive today

 
  00:23 = Productivity matters to me 

 

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For markdown documentation sites like Docusaurus, you can create a custom component.‌

• In your src/components folder, create a file named transcript.jsx.

• Insert this code:
  

import React, { useState } from 'react'; 
export default function Transcript({ }) { 
  const [showTranscript, setShowTranscript] = useState(false); 
  const toggleTranscript = () => { 
    setShowTranscript(!showTranscript); 
  }; 
  return ( 
    <div> <a href="#" onClick={toggleTranscript}> { 
    showTranscript ? 'Hide transcript' : 'View transcript'
    } 
    </a> {showTranscript && ( 
 (insert your transcript text here) div> )} 
    </div> 
  ); 
}‌

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• Go to your markdown file and import it.

import Transcript from '@site/src/components/transcript'; 

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Note: I added some tweaks to the code to make transcript display optional. You can edit it if you want the transcript to show as the page loads.

Transcript for video
Now for videos, YouTube is a great option. It provides inbuilt transcripts for your videos. So, you can always embed YouTube videos in your docs.

The transcript is in the video description after the main details. The transcript will display with the timestamps when you click the “Show Transcript” button.

Add code snippets and use the colour contrast technique

How to add code snippets
Use code blocks within the text to explain code instead of images. You could also use code snippets to showcase the output of your code. Unless it is necessary to add an image, you should use code snippets.

For instance,

index.html

 
   
    
     
    A calculator app 
     
    
    
    
  

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This will allow screen readers to read through the code, which they are not able to do with screenshots.

Colour contrast technique
The colour contrast technique implies using colours that are opposite or heavily contrasting.

For example, using black text on a white background has a high contrast, as opposed to using light brown text on a brown background.

When combining colours, you could use an accessible colour palette like Color Safe.‌

Add translation options

There are documentation sites that provide translation options where you can build your docs in multiple languages, websites like Jekyll. This is an example.

Docusaurus is also another doc site that provides multilingual options using Crowdin or Git.

• Follow through this guide to set up translation and localization on Docusaurus using Git.

• Follow through this guide to set up translation and localization on Docusaurus using Crowdin.‌

Use accessibility testing tools

There are tools you can use to check for errors in accessibility in your docs. Some examples are WAVE (Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool) and AXE (Accessibility Engine).

Also, you can get the NVDA(NonVisual Desktop Access) screen reader to test out your content. This software will let you know how the content of your documentation will be perceived by a user using a screen reader.‌

Set up an improvement or suggestion box

Finally, it may not be possible to cover the needs of every user. So you could add a suggestion or improvement box, allowing users to send feedback about how you could further improve the content. Hearing firsthand from users can help you know how best to make the docs accessible for them.

To add an improvement box, you could use an external form link that stores the users’ inputs or you could set up the suggestion box in the docs.

How to add an external form link in Docusaurus

You would need to create a custom component for that.

• Go to src/components folder and create a file feedback.jsx.

• Add this code:
  

import React from 'react'; 

export default function FeedbackButton({ href }) {
  return ( <a href={href} target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" > Give Feedback </a> ); 
}; 

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• In your markdown file import it:

import FeedbackButton from '@site/src/components/feedbackbutton';

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• Insert the link

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When you run it on your docs, it should showcase a link to Google forms. Google Forms is an example, you could add the link to your company website or server.

Here’s what it’ll look like:

Summary

To follow and implement these accessibility best practices, you can consider creating or using an already made style guide. This can help you consistently implement these practices and make it easier for you and other technical writers on your team.

There are style guides focused on accessibility for technical writers, such as the following:

• Accessibility style guide by Heyawhite

• Write accessible documentation by Google for developers

• Writing for Accessibility by MailChimp content style guide

That sums up my tips about web accessibility practices in writing. I’m a technical writer, and you can reach out to me on Instagram or hire me via Upwork. Thank you for reading.‌

To measure or rather estimate accessibility, we can use automated audits like WAVE, axe and the accessibility report in Lighthouse or PageSpeed Insights to ensure that we don't violate essential Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)

axe-core licensed via MPL 2.0: https://github.com/dequelabs/axe-core

Here is the BrowserStack extension:

[ ] Checked with axe DevTools and addressed Critical and Serious issues?

axe-core - To detect violations on page level.

Like auditing WCAG compliance with accessibility tools like axe and WAVE, it has become much easier to measure and provide data about the ecological impact of web development, but there are still a lot of unknown figures.

Axe is a set of tools created by Deque, to provide a solution for a testing library. To use Axe, one of the possible ways is to install Axe DevTools, which is a browser extension that provides you with a way to test your applications for accessibility issues. To start testing for accessibility using Axe DevTools, you just open the browser's Developer Tools, navigate to the Axe DevTools tab, and run an analysis on your desired webpage;

Pa11y is your automated accessibility testing pal (https://pa11y.org/) by Rowan Manning

And educate himself just a tiny little bit? ;)

Then in his next web project, he just might use https://github.com/pa11y/pa11y and make the world a better place!

Pages should have descriptive titles. Make use of tag. Not just for accessibility reasons, its one of the key tools to improve your SEO.

iFrames should have descriptive titles. iFrame is basically a page within a page, same rule applies for it too.

tag should have lang attribute. It helps screen readers to use correct pronunciation. If parts of your website use different languages, add lang attribute to respective elements as well.

Roles: ARIA roles define the type of element and its purpose. Roles can be used to indicate whether an element is a button, link, menu, dialog, or other interactive components. For example, role="button" can be added to a

element to convey that it functions as a button.

Labels. Interactive elements should have accessible name inside aria-label

Element semantics should not be inappropriately suppressed with aria-hidden. Avoid hiding elements from accessibility tree; If required, use CSS styles to make element invisible by changing opacity or visibility.

Images should have alt attribute. Have you ever been stuck with slow connection and faced a white square wonder what's that supposed to be? Add an alt attribute so the images could be easily identified by text readers.

Useful tools

Going through all those checkpoints might be overwhelming, and indeed, the larger your webpage or application is, the more effort it will take to find and address them.

There are, luckily excellent tools that can jumpstart the process.

• WAVE: A free online tool that provides visual feedback about the accessibility of your web content, highlighting potential issues and offering suggestions for improvement.
• axe DevTools: An accessibility testing extension for Google Chrome and Firefox that can be used directly within the browser's developer tools.
• Pa11y: An open-source automated accessibility testing tool that you can run from the command line or integrate into your CI/CD pipeline.
• Lighthouse Accessibility Audit: Excellent for a quick accessibility insight, Lighthouse is available with Google Chrome dev tools and checks highlight opportunities to improve the accessibility of your web app.

Remember that automated tools are valuable for identifying many common accessibility issues, but manual testing is often necessary to fully understand and address the user experience for people with disabilities. A combination of automated and manual testing, along with a commitment to ongoing accessibility, is key to maintaining an accessible web presence.

Happy coding!

Original post

Pa11y

Automated libraries such as axe-core and pA11y have been a very seamless way to bring accessibility testing into development teams UI testing. It can get development teams to begin to learn and grow accessibility in their teams. However, one big problem has appeared since the rise in popularity of these libraries.

PA11y - It runs accessibility tests on your pages via the command line or Node.js, so you can automate your testing process

https://github.com/pa11y/pa11y - Tool for testing ally using node.js (it also has integration with Cypress).