Lightning talk held at NDC 2016. In the talk I give some tips on how to discover problems with universal design as early as possible and build accessible solutions available for all without breaking the bank. The talk is based on real-life experiences from IT-projects in the public sector.

1. TESTING FOR ACCESSIBILITY WITHOUT
BREAKING THE BANK
CECILIE HAUGSTVEDT, TEST LEAD AT COMPUTAS
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@chaugstvedt

2. WHAT IF WE DON’T TEST?
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3. ACCESSIBILITY IS REQUIRED BY
LAW
• By 2021, all IT solutions must
be universally designed
• Web sites: WCAG 2.0 Level A
and AA with exception for the
texting rules
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4. THE COST OF IGNORING ACCESSIBILITY
BAD REPUTATION
PROJECT DELAYS
FINES
LOST REVENUE
ETHICAL ISSUES
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FEWER CUSTOMERS
EXPENSIVE
PATCHING

5. EFFECTIVE AND EFFICIENT TESTING STARTS EARLY
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6. CHOOSE TECHNOLOGY WISELY
• Compensating for bad
technology can be time-
consuming
• Add accessibility as a criteria
when introducing new
technology
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7. REVIEW THE DESIGN
• Look for elements that require
extra attention: tables,
graphics, input forms, pop-up
windows,…
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8. CHECK THE LANGUAGE
• Universal means for all – use
plain language
• If it’s hard to read for you, it’s
hard to read for someone else
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9. DO AUTOMATED CHECKS
• Check for accessibility in your
continuous integration
pipeline
• Computers are really good at
discovering violations of some
of the rules
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10. USE CHECKLISTS
• For manual code review
• People discover things the
automatic checks cannot:
– Sensible names of
elements
– Good descriptions of
images
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11. USE TOOLS FOR MANUAL
TESTING
• Online tools
– WAVE Chrome Extension
• Offline tools
• Screen reader
– NVDA
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12. TEST WITH A SCREEN READER
• The final test
• Make sure you have removed
all obvious errors first
• Skip this step if you cannot
afford to get a real user of a
screen reader to do the test
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13. COMMON MISTAKES
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14. ILLUSTRATIONS
• Pictures are good, alt-texts
are not optional
• Leave the alt-text empty if
the image is purely decorative
• Text videos even though the
law does not require you to do
so
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15. LINKS
• Don’t let the users guess
• Use sensible names
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• Read more
• More information
• Click here
• ...

16. NAVIGATION
• Always do at least one
keyboard-only test
• Make the links large enough
• Use HTML 5 and semantic
sections
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<aside>
<article>
<header>
<nav>
<footer>
<section>
<section>

17. COLOR CONTRAST
• 5 – 8 % of all Norwegian men
are color blind
• Think about a sunny day
• No discussion needed: the
answer can be found online
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This is not easy to read
This is better

18. MOTIVATION TEST COMMON ERRORS
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Do it because
you care
Avoid common
mistakes
Start test early

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Thank you!
Cecilie Haugstvedt
Test lead
ach@computas.com
@chaugstvedt