"What does progress over perfection mean when it comes to accessibility? It means to get started. Don’t wait until everything is done and perfect. The small steps make a big difference." ~ Collective Speakers, Meryl Evans
Accessibility is an ongoing journey, not a destination. It requires a commitment to continuous improvement with incremental changes that have a real impact on users with disabilities.
This is where the DubBot app comes in. DubBot crawls your website, identifying a wide range of accessibility issues like missing alt text, low color contrast, keyboard navigation problems, and more, helping you shift your focus from achieving perfection from the git-go to making consistent, meaningful progress.
Identify and Prioritize
DubBot checks for WCAG 2.1 and 2.2 accessibility requirements, levels A, AA, and AAA. For each issue detected, DubBot explains the issue, the corresponding WCAG criteria violations, the location of the issue in the code, and a failure summary that gives information on how to remediate the issue.
Also included for each issue is an impact severity level label: minor, moderate, serious, or critical. Using these impact labels, you can prioritize those issues and remediate the low-hanging fruit, issues labeled with minor or moderate.
Continuous Improvement
Integrating regularly scheduled crawls of new and existing content ensures ongoing accessibility and improvement. The DubBot app has a default minimum cadence of crawling sites every seven (7) days. Admin and manager users can increase that cadence and kick off new crawls manually within the DubBot app.
Tracking Progress
Reporting is an essential, measurable component of progress tracking. Reports highlight achievements, flag potential stumbling blocks, and keep you focused on key accessibility metrics. They can also motivate individuals and teams to stay on track and focused on continuous improvement.
DubBot offers eight downloadable reports in CVS format to help you track and document your accessibility work. The screenshot below lists those reports, which include a Pages Summary Report, Accessibility Issues, Bad Link Issues, Web Governance Issues, Best Practices Issues, Spelling Issues, SEO Issues, and Ignored Issues.
DubBot also allows you to create custom reports, either a summary or a full report, based on your selected checks. You can share a custom report with your leadership and stakeholders even if they do not have an account with DubBot. For more information, please see the Help Center article "Working with Custom Reports."
Remember, automated accessibility checkers do have some limitations. They cannot identify all accessibility issues. Always conduct a manual accessibility audit. This ensures that all issues are identified and addressed effectively. For a list of manual and automated testing criteria, request a copy of DubBot’s "Beginner's Guide for Manual and Automated Accessibility Testing."
By embracing a progress-over-perfection approach, utilizing automated and manual accessibility audits, and continuously striving for improvement, you can create a more accessible and inclusive experience for everyone.
Resources
- Principles of Web Accessibility
- Custom Policies: DubBot’s Hidden Gem
- Accessibility Feedback & the User Experience
- Custom Policies - Not Just for Website Editors Anymore
- Accessibility: Why You Need to Work Toward Progress Over Perfection
A human author creates the DubBlog posts. The AI tool Gemini is sometimes used to brainstorm subject ideas, generate blog post outlines, and rephrase certain portions of the content. Our marketing team carefully reviews all final drafts for accuracy and authenticity. The opinions and perspectives expressed remain the sole responsibility of the human author.
