Accessibility

Accessibility

Purpose

Make interfaces usable without a mouse, without sight, and without perfect colour perception — and be able to prove it against WCAG 2.2 AA rather than assert it.

When to Use

• Auditing a page or component for accessibility.
• Building an interactive component: modal, menu, combobox, tabs.
• Before a release with a legal or contractual accessibility requirement.
• Fixing findings from an automated scan (which catch roughly a third of real issues).

Capabilities

• WCAG 2.2 AA audit against the actual success criteria.
• Semantic HTML and correct ARIA (including when to use none).
• Keyboard navigation, focus order, and focus trapping.
• Screen-reader testing and announcement design.
• Colour contrast and non-colour signalling.

Inputs

• The page, component, or flow.
• The conformance target (usually WCAG 2.2 AA).
• The assistive technologies in scope.

Outputs

• Findings mapped to specific WCAG success criteria, with severity.
• The fix for each, at the code level.
• A keyboard and screen-reader walkthrough of the corrected flow.

Workflow

1. Use the keyboard first — Tab through the entire flow. Can you reach every control? Can you see where you are? Can you escape every trap? This single test finds most serious defects.
2. Check the semantics — Headings in order, landmarks present, lists as lists, buttons as <button>. A <div onclick> is invisible to a screen reader and unreachable by keyboard.
3. Run the automated scan — axe or Lighthouse. It catches contrast, missing labels, and ARIA misuse. It will not catch a wrong reading order or a meaningless label.
4. Test with a screen reader — VoiceOver on macOS, NVDA on Windows. Listen to the flow: does the announcement make sense without the visual context?
5. Verify contrast — 4.5:1 for body text, 3:1 for large text and for UI component boundaries. Do not rely on the design tool's claim; measure the rendered result.
6. Fix and re-verify — Each fix is re-tested by keyboard and screen reader, not just by the scanner.

Best Practices

• The first rule of ARIA is not to use ARIA. A native <button>, <select>, or <dialog> is accessible for free; a re-implementation with role="button" is a maintenance liability that will drift.
• Never remove the focus outline without providing a visible replacement. outline: none with nothing after it is a WCAG 2.4.7 failure.
• aria-label overrides the visible text for screen-reader users. If they differ, a voice-control user saying the visible label cannot activate the control (WCAG 2.5.3).
• Colour alone must never carry meaning. A red border on an invalid field needs an icon or text as well.
• Focus must move into a modal when it opens, be trapped while it is open, and return to the trigger when it closes. Almost no hand-rolled modal does all three.
• Announce dynamic changes with a live region. A form that submits and updates silently leaves screen-reader users with no feedback.

Examples

Accessible modal: focus management and semantics:

function Modal({ open, onClose, title, children }: ModalProps) {
  const dialogRef = useRef<HTMLDialogElement>(null);

  useEffect(() => {
    const dialog = dialogRef.current;
    if (!dialog) return;
    if (open) dialog.showModal();      // native focus trap + inert background + Esc handling
    else dialog.close();
  }, [open]);

  return (
    <dialog
      ref={dialogRef}
      aria-labelledby="modal-title"
      onClose={onClose}
      onClick={(e) => { if (e.target === dialogRef.current) onClose(); }}
    >
      <h2 id="modal-title">{title}</h2>
      {children}
      <button onClick={onClose}>Close</button>
    </dialog>
  );
}

The native <dialog> element with showModal() provides the focus trap, background inertness, Esc to close, and focus restoration — all of which a <div role="dialog"> requires you to implement and maintain by hand.

Error state that does not rely on colour, and is announced:

<div>
  <label for="email">Email address</label>
  <input id="email" type="email" aria-invalid="true" aria-describedby="email-error" />
  <p id="email-error" role="alert">
    <svg aria-hidden="true" ...></svg>
    Enter an email address in the format [email protected]
  </p>
</div>

Notes

• Automated tools detect roughly 30-40% of WCAG issues. A clean axe report is a starting point, not a conformance claim.
• WCAG 2.2 added target size (2.5.8, 24×24 CSS pixels minimum) and focus appearance criteria. Interfaces that passed 2.1 may fail 2.2 on small icon buttons.
• Skip links must be the first focusable element and must become visible on focus. A skip link that stays hidden when focused helps nobody.