lighthouse VS axe-core

Google Core Vitals now represent the most important metrics to focus on when it comes to technical SEO. Google Core Vitals are a set of standardized metrics that Google uses to evaluate the user experience offered by a web page and assign it a technical SEO grade. Several tools exist to measure and report technical SEO performance, but the most reliable is Google Lighthouse.

- referred to https://github.com/GoogleChrome/lighthouse/issues/6512 but didnt see network.disable error - added staticdistdir as per https://github.com/GoogleChrome/lighthouse-ci/blob/main/docs/configuration.md,

There has been discussion about adding a visual indicator to make the mode more obvious, but it has not made it into Chrome devtools!

I haven't tried it, but you might be able to control throttling by using lighthouse to get performance data: https://github.com/GoogleChrome/lighthouse/blob/main/docs/throttling.md

When we implemented the MVP of the fintech app, we had a quite complicated form. At that time, I was still young and inexperienced. And eventually, we realized that our project was slowing down. We had to spend additional hours figuring out the reason. We had many unnecessary re-renders because we ignored basic rules related to props in React. I wanted to do everything possible to avoid such situations in the future. So, I added to the project linters like this and an additional starting configuration to package.json to run why-did-you-render. In short, this plugin issues a warning if something is re-rendered unnecessarily and suggests how to avoid it. Also, we included running Lighthouse in headless mode. Some people say that premature optimizations are bad, but for me, it's a principle: do it right from the start.

You can run a Lighthouse audit in two ways: either on the command line or in a browser. If you want to run audits on the command line, you will first need to install the Lighthouse command:

i wanted to run the lighthouse(lh) docker container on multiple EC2 instances in different regions. I'm thinking of triggering the EC2 instance with the lambda function once the lh container has audited the URL the results will be sent "SUB rest API" which will further update the UI

There's a link to what they mean by mobile network there (https://github.com/GoogleChrome/lighthouse/blob/main/docs/throttling.md) and it says:

Here's the non-psuedo code equivalent that can leverage CompressionStream rather than using a browserified-gzip-library: https://github.com/GoogleChrome/lighthouse/blob/437eb4d757c5...

We use it in Lighthouse for the exact same purpose, a URL #hash full of state. We found that modern browsers support 10mb of data in the hash. https://github.com/GoogleChrome/lighthouse/pull/12509#discus...

Lighthouse: This is an open-source tool developed by Google that allows you to audit the performance of your website. You can use Lighthouse to get a detailed report on your website's Core Web Vitals, as well as other performance metrics. You can run Lighthouse in Chrome DevTools or as a command-line tool.

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;