Conducting Manual and Automated Accessibility Audits

1. Introduction

Goal of the Tutorial

This tutorial aims to guide you through the process of conducting both manual and automated accessibility audits. This will ensure that your website is accessible to all users, including those with disabilities.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this tutorial, you will:
- Understand the importance of web accessibility
- Learn how to conduct a manual accessibility audit
- Learn how to conduct an automated accessibility audit using popular tools
- Understand the different accessibility issues and how to fix them

Prerequisites

Basic knowledge of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript is required. Familiarity with web development practices and standards is beneficial.

2. Step-by-Step Guide

Web accessibility means making your website usable for everyone, including people with disabilities. There are two main ways to ensure your website is accessible: manual and automated audits.

Manual Audit

Manual audits involve manually checking your website against accessibility guidelines. The most commonly used are the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).

1. Check for Keyboard Accessibility: Ensure that all interactive elements can be accessed using only the keyboard.
2. Check for Visual Accessibility: Make sure that color contrast is sufficient, and that images have alt text.
3. Check for Understandable Content: Ensure that the content is easy to read and understand.

Automated Audit

Automated audits involve using tools to automatically check your website for accessibility issues. Some popular tools include:

1. Lighthouse: An open-source automated tool that checks for performance, accessibility, progressive web apps, SEO, and more.
2. WAVE (Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool): A suite of evaluation tools that helps authors make their web content more accessible.

3. Code Examples

Example 1: Keyboard Accessibility

<!-- Good: This button can be accessed using the keyboard -->
<button>Click me!</button>

<!-- Bad: This div acting as a button cannot be accessed using the keyboard -->
<div onclick="myFunction()">Click me!</div>

Example 2: Visual Accessibility

<!-- Good: This image has alt text -->
<img src="my-image.jpg" alt="Description of image">

<!-- Bad: This image does not have alt text -->
<img src="my-image.jpg">

4. Summary

In this tutorial, we learned about the importance of web accessibility and how to conduct both manual and automated accessibility audits. We also explored some accessibility issues and how to fix them.

5. Practice Exercises

1. Exercise 1: Manually check a website of your choice for keyboard accessibility.

2. Solution: Check if all interactive elements can be accessed and operated using only the keyboard.

3. Exercise 2: Use an automated tool like Lighthouse or WAVE to check a website for accessibility issues.

4. Solution: Generate a report using the tool and analyze the results.

Remember, the goal is to make your website as accessible as possible to all users. Keep practicing and checking different websites to improve your skills.