Thread: Too many #a11y specialists understand WCAG but don’t understand how conformance issues may/may not impact people with disabilities (PwD). I’ve reviewed many complaints of WCAG violations that either don’t impact PwD or only cause minor inconveniences.
Automated #accessibility tools are great resources but too often results are misunderstood &/or not verified for accuracy. These results are then given to product owners who spend valuable time & resources trying to fix minor/non-issues instead of focusing on truly serious ones.
It’s crucial that #a11y specialists understand exactly who identified issues impact & how they’re impacted. For example, keyboard issues. I see many reports that flag keyboard inaccessibility of controls as critical impact for screen reader users only. Inaccurate & incomplete.
Inaccurate & incomplete as 1) screen reader users may have other ways to access the control lowering the impact, 2) keyboard-only users who don’t use AT are not identified but are impacted much more severely, 3) users of other kinds of AT may also be impacted at various degrees.
As #a11y specialists, we owe it to product owners to provide detailed, accurate #accessibility reports. Reports that allow them to prioritize defect fixes accurately & to better understand time & resources needed to address said defects.
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