Getting started with screen readers
Teams tend to reach for this after something has already gone wrong. A short on-ramp to screen readers for teams who have not touched it before.
Accessibility work almost always improves the experience for people who have no impairment at all. If it only works because one person remembers to do something, it does not work yet.
What it costs to ignore
Test with one and the theory becomes obvious. None of that requires a large budget, only a decision and someone to own it. It is worth deciding this deliberately rather than inheriting whatever the last person set up.
Your first week
- Find out what is already in place
- Correct markup does most of the work
- Change one thing and measure it
Announced changes need live regions. That sounds obvious written down. It is still the thing most often skipped. The teams that stay on top of it are the ones who put it on a calendar rather than a wish list.
How to tell if yours is fine
Most of it is correctness rather than charity: use the right element and much of it happens automatically. Three things worth confirming about screen readers before you move on:
- Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
- Correct markup does most of the work — and you know whether that is true here
- There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped
None of this needs a rewrite. Most of it is a morning's work once someone decides to do it.