Accessibility Remediation for WCAG Compliance

Overview:

As the accessibility engineer for the Dow Jones Developer Platform, I led a comprehensive remediation effort to address accessibility issues and ensure compliance with accessibility standards. Leveraging my expertise in accessibility and development, I collaborated closely with the development team to identify, prioritize, and resolve accessibility issues across the platform.

• Role and Responsibilities:

In my role, I was responsible for analyzing an existing accessibility report, identifying critical issues, and translating them into actionable tickets for the development team. Additionally, I actively participated in the development process, directly addressing accessibility issues through code fixes. This dual role allowed for a more streamlined and efficient remediation process.

• Technologies Used:

The project primarily utilized HTML, CSS, plain JavaScript, and Bootstrap to implement accessibility enhancements. These technologies were leveraged to address a wide range of accessibility concerns and ensure a seamless user experience for all users.

• Goals Achieved:

The primary goal of the project was to address and remediate all identified accessibility issues. Through our efforts, we successfully resolved a total of 97 blocking and major accessibility bugs, significantly improving the platform's accessibility and usability for individuals with disabilities.

• Challenges Faced:

One of the most significant challenges encountered during the project was addressing accessibility issues on dynamically generated custom components. This required extensive modifications to the generated HTML to ensure semantic structure and accessibility compliance. Overcoming this challenge involved innovative solutions and meticulous attention to detail.