-

External resources for suppliers

Useful external resources on accessibility

This resource provides links to carefully selected external resources that provide a useful introduction to key aspects of digital accessibility. There is a substantial amount of information about accessibility out there, and identifying resources that are reliable, accurate and helpful can be a challenging task, especially if you’re new to accessibility! We’ve chosen these resources as being especially useful for covering accessibility from different perspectives and on different topics, without assuming advanced prior knowledge. The resources listed here may recommend further reading, to help you build up your accessibility knowledge and skills.

Getting started

Accessibility is a shared responsibility, and a team game. The following resources provide a helpful introduction to web accessibility for anyone who needs to know more about the topic.

Business leaders and product owners

Accessibility is best delivered when it is a business priority, with leadership support. As a business leader or product owner, become familiar with the key business benefits of including accessibility in your digital products and services, and the risks of failing to address accessibility appropriately.

Procurement, legal and compliance

Legislation that protects disabled people against discrimination applies to the digital world. Ensure that you understand your legal obligations, and how you can manage accessibility risk in digital content that you produce internally and procure from third parties.

Project Management

When accessibility is intentionally addressed throughout the project or product management process, the chances of successfully delivering an accessible product are increased. Make sure that accessibility is included in requirements, and the project team has what it needs to deliver accessibility requirements

Involving disabled people in user research

Effective involvement of disabled people early and throughout the development lifecycle helps ensure that your accessibility efforts lead to digital products that disabled people can successfully use to complete tasks and achieve goals. Include disabled people in user experience research and product evaluation.

Design

Design decisions that take accessibility into account help increase the chances that designs can be implemented without accessibility barriers. Make sure visual designs observe accessibility standards.

Development

Coding for accessibility is critical to ensuring that a product can be operated and understood by disabled people. Make sure that you develop digital products that follow accessibility standards.

  • Accessibility resources for developers, by W3C Web Accessibility Initiative. Includes links to getting started resources, tutorials on building accessible menus, images, forms, and tables, plus an overview of how the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) can support accessible development.
  • Introduction to ARIA - Accessible Rich Internet Applications, by WebAIM, an overview of how developers can use the WAI-ARIA specification to develop accessible web applications.
  • MDN web accessibility resources, by Mozilla Developer Network. A collection of developer-focused accessibility tutorials, focused on web and mobile development using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
  • A11yproject.com posts, by A11yproject, a community project that offers a growing series of posts on a range of topics on accessible development.
  • ARIA authoring practices guide, by W3C. Accessible design patterns and supporting resources for a wide selection of user interface components.

Mobile app accessibility best practices:

Testing/QA

Testing and quality assurance (QA) processes are an opportunity to check that accessibility requirements have been met, and any accessibility issues are reported accurately so that they can be remediated effectively. Embed accessibility tests into your QA testing processes.

  • Evaluating web accessibility overview, by W3C Web Accessibility Initiative. A collection of resources describing approaches to testing web sites for accessibility, including advice on using tools and checklists, and guidance on reporting accessibility.
  • Testing for accessibility, by Gov.uk. An overview of manual and automated methods for accessibility testing.
  • How to bake layers of accessibility testing into your process, by Kate Kalcevich and Mike Gifford. A Smashing Magazine article introducing a strategy for accessibility testing, showing how different types of test can be combined throughout the development process.
  • Writing automated tests for accessibility, by Deque. An introduction to developers and testers to ways in which automated accessibility can be integrated into testing processes.
  • Accessibility Acceptance Criteria, by MagentaA11y. A tool to help generate accessibility acceptance criteria and test processes for a range of user interface components for web and mobile apps.

Content, communications and marketing

Creating and sharing accessible content, whether text, video or audio, is a critical part of an organisation’s accessibility efforts. Make sure that accessibility is part of your content authoring strategy, including marketing, communications and social media.

Building capacity

Organisations need knowledge and skills to deliver accessible digital resources. In addition to helping existing staff grow accessibility skills relevant to their roles and responsibilities, you may want to invest in additional staff who can bring accessibility expertise to specific positions in your organisation. Increasing the proportion of disabled staff in your organisation is another way you can demonstrate a commitment to digital inclusion.

How we created this list of resources

We partnered with international accessibility consultants TPGi to help craft this curated list of quality, free accessibility resources and training from a range of credible sources to help individuals and organisations new to the topic gain knowledge and skills.

If you have any feedback and suggestions, please contact DigitalAccessibility@barclayscorp.com

Legal disclaimer 

We are not responsible for, nor do we endorse in any way such third party websites or their content. If you decide to access any of the third party websites, you do so entirely at your own risk.