A starter set of specific design questions for better accessibility and usability.
If you were to ask for assistance with design, product, accessibility, usability — this is a small selection of actual topics and questions I might pose for your project.
The following are specific questions meant to be springboards for further discussion and consideration to improve the user experience in general for more people.
My goal for this particular list is to concentrate more on questions that could be answered objectively and fairly quickly, with a few more subjective questions to expand the scope a bit. It’s to give you a sense of the details to think about, while acknowledging there are many other topics to consider, whether broad or fine-grained.
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Are the menus and menu items consistently arranged/ordered? Are menus easy to navigate to, regardless of input device? Do the menu items have clearly visible and accurate text labels, or do they rely on iconography only?
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Is the Help section or knowledge base information available to browse fully and freely, or is it hidden behind a search or collapsed section? Is it possible to read and/or select all of the answers in an FAQ at once? Are answers to Help questions only available in video format?
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When a warning or error message appears, does it provide you with a helpful and appropriate reason for what happened? Does the message remain visible on the page until you choose to dismiss it? Are you able to copy/paste the message text?
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Does the browser Back button work as expected? If you attempt to go “back” then are you taken back to your place where you left off?
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On a form, is each field highlighted when active, and do the field names persist on the page? Can you navigate through the form with hardware keyboard shortcuts, and fill out and submit the form without needing a mouse?
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Are videos and animation opt-in? Are there controls to allow you to play and pause? Are the controls navigable by keyboard and screen reader? Are the controls visually far enough apart to prevent accidentally choosing the wrong one?
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Are there accurate transcriptions available for audio and video media?
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Do images have alt text values that are appropriate for the context? Alt text is one of the most referenced accessibility-related attributes because images with no alt text or unhelpful alt text are such a common occurrence, still.
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Are all the images even needed? Can any images be converted to text instead?
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Is any information communicated solely through colors or color differences? Do the color contrasts pass accessibility standards for legibility? Are there any text links that use the same color as regular body text?
And now, some further context for folks looking for help with web accessibility.
One of the most effective things you can do for inclusive design is to work with actual members of your target audience: internal and external users; a wide range of users who access the web using different methods, software, hardware, tools.
Accessibility scanners are helpful, but there is no simple checklist or automated scanner that can replace feedback and input based on the experiences of actual people.
If you have the desire to make improvements, however, whether for your portfolio or hobby site, or for your startup, or for your large corporation, there’s no reason not to start with whatever you can do.
The best time to start is now, and build from one step to another.