Accessibility 101-102: What every tester should know about digital accessibility
summary
About 15% globally and roughly 1 in 4 in Europe need accessible digital services, and the European Accessibility Act takes effect June 25, 2025 with existing products granted a limited grace until 2030 only if unchanged. Obligations reference EN301549 and WCAG 2.1→2.2 at AA; microenterprises and strictly B2B/employee-only software are out. Practical fixes include semantic HTML, keyboard focus order and descriptive alt text. Demoed tools that integrate into CI and work: axe-core audits, custom linters (pre-commit), and a WebdriverIO tab-order check with axe watcher.
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chapters (16)
- 0:00Digital accessibility intro
- 1:07Who benefits from accessibility
- 3:19Accessibility requirements for testers
- 8:23European Accessibility Act
- 10:35Act scope and compliance
- 13:51Grace periods and exemptions
- 16:40Why overlays fail
- 17:45Ethics beyond compliance
- 18:48Accessibility in design/dev
- 22:18Semantic HTML best practices
- 24:03Early accessibility testing
- 27:14Selectors for automated tests
- 30:06Practical accessibility tools
- 32:39Custom linters and checks
- 35:15CI accessibility monitoring
- 37:02Summary and call to action
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