Accessibility Within an Agile Development Team

Within Software systems "detection of errors early in the process saves more effort and time than later in the development or after release" and the same is true for Accessibility.

It’s important that Accessibility requirements are defined during the initial stages. This ensures that Accessibility is a fundamental aspect of the project, not an afterthought.

Accessibility should be discussed when a feature is being defined by the Product Owners (POs) and Business Analysts (BAs) with the BAs writing Acceptance Criteria (AC) where applicable.

During a 3 Amigo's (3A) collaborative meeting, Accessibility should be part of the discussion to help in identifying and mitigating risks early.

Typically a Technical Architect (TA) or Lead Developers (LD) in smaller teams would take the ACs and output of 3A and write up a Technical Specification for the ticket, this will then include Technical ACs (TACs) for the Accessibility considerations.

During ticket estimation, Accessibility considerations also needs to be taken into account by Development and QA teams.

Once the ticket is picked up by the development team, they would then implement the feature including Accessibility considerations in line with the ACs and TACs.

QA would then test the feature using the ACs and TACs. Automation tests as part of the Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) pipeline can be used to test items like HTML tags for ARIA labels and other attributes. A balance needs to be made between robust and fragile tests with Manual testing filling in the gaps. Manual testing is also key for Accessibility testing for screen readers etc.

Many Software Development teams in the web space would benefit from additional accessibility skills. This is where an Accessibility Provider (AP) like us can seamlessly integrate into your Ways of Working, which can look something like this:

Feature Definition

PO and BA create feature requirements and passes to AP to add Accessibility ACs (specifying which WCAG guidelines are relevant) etc.

3 Amigo's

3A discussion which typically includes the Developer, Tester, and BA or PO would also include the AP so everyone is aligned on the ticket.

Technical Specification

TA/LD write Technical specifications for the ticket consulting with the AP as necessary.

Backlog Refinement

AP is present on the refinement call as a final check and for any questions

Development

AP is available for handover sessions and to answer developer questions as required.

QA

AP available to support QA during testing