This is a frequently updated list of links regarding accessibility I found worth saving. It’s currently focused on mobile (especially iOS development) as this is my main area right now.
Last update: 5th July 2023
Guidelines & Standards
This section is focused on the European area because I am a citizen of the EU. Please be aware that standards and laws might be very different in your area.
Regarding EU, also see my short blog post about the European Accessibility Act: https://mic.st/blog/european-accessibility-act-in-short/ or even more specific for Germany see my short intro on BFSG https://mic.st/blog/barrierefreiheitsstarkungsgesetz-bfsg-in-apps-or-digital-services-and-products/
| Link | Description |
|---|---|
| https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/quickref/ | The WCAG is the guideline when it comes to digital accessibility. The most recent version is 2.1. However, the guidelines are focused on web. Therefore, some rules are not directly applicable to mobile or need interpretation. The version 2.2 of the guidelines is currently in the making and should include more mobile related topics. |
| https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=1202&langId=en | Quick overview regarding the European accessibility act. In the US there is already the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) that requires companies to care for accessibility. |
| https://www.etsi.org/deliver/etsi_en/301500_301599/301549/02.01.02_60/en_301549v020102p.pdf | The EN 301 549 is the European norm for digital accessibility. The standard is of importance together with the European Accessibility act (https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=1485&langId=en). This norm also refers to WCAG. The official documents can be difficult to digest and to apply. Therefore, I would rather start working with simpler guidelines that refer to the official ones. |
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wav3bzkb31U | Jon Gibbins describes in this presentation how he interprets the WCAG success criteria to be applicable to native mobile apps. He derives a list of success criteria that he uses to check native mobile apps for conformance. |
Company guidelines
Currently, we have the problem that there are no official accessibility guidelines directly appliable to mobile. That is why a lot of companies started their own guidelines.
| Link | Description |
|---|---|
| https://a11y-guidelines.orange.com/en/ | I really, really like these guidelines by the french telecommunications company Orange. The best thing is how well it’s structured. You can quickly find a solution for a lot of use case with short explanations, nice graphics and code snippets. Also, it’s open source! You can find the github repo here: https://github.com/Orange-OpenSource/a11y-guidelines. |
| https://www.capitalone.com/tech/software-engineering/wcag-accessiblity-guidelines-mobile/ | In the tech blog of the UK banking company Capital One, Rob Whitaker shares how the four principles of the WCAG can be applied to mobile. |
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/accessibility/forproducts/guides/mobile/ | UK public service broadcaster BBC also has its own accessibility guidelines. |
| https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/accessibility/overview/introduction/ | The Accessiblity section in Apple’s Human Interface guidelines are definitely worth a read. However, they are more about how to apply Apple’s existing features (which is great) rather than applying offical guidelines (like WCAG) |
| https://developer.spotify.com/blog/2023-01-12-introducing-developer-accessibility-guides | Spotify‘s Developer Acessibility guides. They are platform independent and do offer a lot of hints, tricks and tips on how to make digital products more accessible. What I really like is that the guide is even categorized in Quick, medium and time-intense wins. It gives you a good idea where you can immediately start. Just getting presented everything possible might be a little overwhelming for anybody just starting to work on a11y. |
Development Processes / UX
This section will focus on links about implementing accessibility in your daily workflow from the requirements to the actual implementation.
| Link | Description |
|---|---|
| https://medium.com/capital-one-tech/ios-accessibility-best-practices-for-the-voiceover-user-experience-dc08112ef16 | Product Manager Nick Sheehan from Capital One shows how they define Accessibility in their acceptance criteria. Furthermore, there are some quick tips to tackle usual Accessibility issues. |
| https://medium.com/rosberryapps/accessibility-what-you-need-to-know-about-mobile-app-development-for-people-with-special-needs-b52d713f8c95 | This is a very useful article about mobile accessibility by Anastasia Egorina (UX/UI designer at Rosberry). It has great resources and simple Dos and Don’ts with screenshots. |
| https://www.ibm.com/able/ | IBM’s “Equal Access Toolkit” offers a lot for any phase of a project. |
iOS Development
This section contains articles that are specific to iOS development.
| Link | Description |
|---|---|
| https://www.deque.com/blog/ios-nested-accessibility/ | The isAccessibilityElement property in UIKit should be handled with care. Your app’s accessibility might get worse when misusing it. This article shows you the right way. |
| https://medium.com/short-swift-stories/accessibility-element-2d55cefdf9d7 | Good general overview regarding Accessibility features on iOS. |
| https://www.24a11y.com/2018/ios-accessibility-properties/ | Blog article by Jennifer Dailey from Deque Systems. iOS’ accessibility features do map directly to “WCAG 4.1.2: Name, Role, Value”. She gives gives a lot of great examples on how to group elements. |
| https://developer.apple.com/accessibility/ios/ | Great starting point from a technical perspective. You can dive deep directly into WWDC talks, the HIG and APIs |
Web
| https://webaim.org/techniques/alttext/ | This guide explains very nicely with examples how to properly write images‘ alt texts. |
| http://web-accessibility.carnegiemuseums.org/ | Very good read onto anything a11y related when it comes to web. The whole website is nicely categorized and also very fast. |
Tools
There are tools that can help building more accessible products (i.e conform to standards like EN 301 549).
Keep in mind: You should never solely rely on tools or automated testing.
Actually, there are dependencies and services promising automated conformance or something like that. This might work for simple things like spotting violations of color contrasts or checking for touch areas. It will get really difficult for more complex requirements like understandable user flows.
| Link | Description |
|---|---|
| https://material.io/resources/color/#!/ | This tool instantly checks the accessibility of color combinations for certain text sizes. There is also a simple preview with a mobile mockup. However, it is a little bit more advanced compared to similar palette generators. I would recommend to create a palette in an easier one (e.g. coolors.co or Color Hunt) and improve it using this one. |
Books
| Title | Link | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Developing Inclusive Mobile Apps | https://www.apress.com/gp/book/9781484258132 | This is a really good book on Accessibility by Rob Whitaker. It covers iOS and Android. For iOS it includes the basics and also more advanced techniques for tackling accessibility. Every iOS developer should buy this 🙂 Also checkout his GitHub, e.g. he maintains an accessibility UI Testing framework https://github.com/rwapp/A11yUITests |
| A Best-in-Class iOS App: The Book Series Package | https://swiftjectivec.gumroad.com/l/bicbook | This eBook is a frequently updated project by Jordan Morgan which you can buy as a Beta version and is updated frequently. It is not only about accessibility, it is about the whole process of building an app from design to release and it is not completely finished yet (as of January, 2022). However, the Accessibility part already is already finished! The nice thing: When buying this, you will get frequent updates, i.e. also when Apple updates their APIs Jordan wants to cover that. |
Other articles or resources
| Link | Description |
|---|---|
| https://mobilea11y.com/ | This is a great resource of links and articles Rob Whitaker. He also has a sample project to show all the iOS A11y features: https://github.com/rwapp/A11y-Box-iOS (+ checkout his book, see “Books” section) |
| https://www.afb.org/blindness-and-low-vision/using-technology/assistive-technology-products/mobile-apps | The American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) put together a lists accessible mobile apps. Good for inspiration on how to tackle A11y. |
| https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIl2EzNYri0cLtSlZowttih25VnSvWITu | Official playlist by Apple Support with lots of short videos about how to activate and use different Accessibility Features. This is great for quickly seeing what actually is possible on all the platforms. |
