From 4bf85b23c6f516982780df8e4533bf24881900c7 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Rohan Kumar Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2022 09:52:09 -0800 Subject: [PATCH] New note: problem with automated a11y checks --- ...oblem-with-automated-accessibility-checks.md | 17 +++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 17 insertions(+) create mode 100644 content/notes/problem-with-automated-accessibility-checks.md diff --git a/content/notes/problem-with-automated-accessibility-checks.md b/content/notes/problem-with-automated-accessibility-checks.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..228ec75 --- /dev/null +++ b/content/notes/problem-with-automated-accessibility-checks.md @@ -0,0 +1,17 @@ +--- +title: "The problem with automated accessibility checks" +date: 2022-12-22T09:52:09-08:00 +replyURI: "https://a11y.info/@todd/109552097339472503" +replyTitle: "I run Lighthouse and WAVE as…a baseline of sorts" +replyType: "SocialMediaPosting" +replyAuthor: "Todd Libby" +replyAuthorURI: "https://toddl.dev/" +--- + +> I run Lighthouse and WAVE as a "Hey, let's see what I have ahead of me" kind of thing. A baseline of sorts. Then I go into manual testing + +I strongly disagree with running automated tests *first* if you have the means to do manual tests. People get too hung up on automated tests revealing only N percent of issues; the reality is that they end up encouraging people to spend their time fixing those issues instead of more critical errors. + +Less than a minute with the "inspector" tool in most browser DevTools (not even the Accessibility Inspector!) will quickly reveal poor use of semantic HTML, poorly-written alt-text, site titles that shouldn't be headings, non-descriptive names, and conflation of semantics with presentation. Fixing these is probably a better use of your time than hunting down every duplicate link name in a page that an automated checker finds. + +I prefer running an automated checker after catching low-hanging fruit manually.