Accessibility Field Guide
A practical collection of accessibility field notes, examples, and small habits that help teams catch common issues before they turn into rework.
Guides
Reusable checklists, one-pagers, templates, diagrams, visual explainers, and resources worth sending to a team.
Featured Guide
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Checklists
Working aids for intake, requirements, and review readiness.
Reflow
Check whether a screen still works when people zoom, resize, or use a narrow viewport without losing content, functionality, or reading order.
Reflow Review Checklist
A practical checklist for checking whether a screen still works when people zoom, resize, or use a narrow viewport.
Checklists and Job Aids
Practical Accessibility Field Guide checklists for intake, requirements, forms, keyboard QA, review readiness, vendors, and component work.
Browse by Topic
Browse Accessibility Field Guide topics by the kind of issue you are seeing in real project work.
Accessibility Glossary
A plain-language Accessibility Field Guide glossary for common terms teams encounter during requirements, design, development, QA, and review.
Tabs
A practical Accessibility Field Guide page for checking tabbed interfaces, selected state, tab panels, keyboard behavior, focus, and when tabs are the right pattern.
Combobox
A practical Accessibility Field Guide page for checking combobox fields, autocomplete suggestions, selected values, keyboard behavior, focus, and ARIA state.
Button vs Link
Use buttons for actions and links for navigation so people can predict what will happen before they activate a control.
Name, Role, and Value
Check whether custom controls expose what they are called, what they are, and what state they are in before ARIA becomes guesswork.
Color Contrast
Check whether text, icons, controls, and meaningful visual boundaries are easy to see before contrast becomes a late review finding.
Color-Only Meaning
Do not make color carry the whole message. Pair color with text, shape, labels, icons, or patterns so the meaning is available to everyone.
Alt Text Basics
Write text alternatives that explain the purpose of an image in context, not every pixel in the picture.
Tables and Data Displays
Use tables when relationships matter, keep headers and labels clear, and avoid turning data into a puzzle.
Status Messages and Alerts
A practical Field Guide page about making save messages, alerts, loading updates, and other screen changes understandable without forcing users to hunt for them.
Modals and Dialogs
A practical Field Guide page about making modals and dialogs understandable, keyboard-accessible, and easy to escape.
Headings and Page Structure
A practical Field Guide page about using headings to make screens easier to scan, navigate, and review.
Accessible Names
A practical Field Guide page about how controls get the names people hear, see, speak, and navigate by.
Link Text and Button Labels
A practical Field Guide page about writing link text and button labels that make sense before someone activates them.
Native HTML First
A practical Field Guide page about starting with built-in HTML elements before reaching for custom components or ARIA.
Vendor Accessibility Questions Checklist
A practical checklist for asking vendors what their accessibility evidence actually covers.
Vendor and Third-Party Accessibility Field Guide
A practical guide for asking better accessibility questions when a product, platform, widget, or document comes from a vendor.
Focus Visible and Focus Order
A practical Field Guide page about making keyboard focus visible, predictable, and ordered so people do not lose their place on the page.
Error Messages and Recovery
A practical Field Guide page about writing and placing error messages so users can understand what went wrong and recover without guessing.
Keyboard-Only Navigation
A practical Field Guide page about checking whether people can move through screens, controls, menus, dialogs, and forms without using a mouse.
Form Review Checklist
A practical checklist for reviewing labels, instructions, required fields, errors, grouping, and recovery before a form goes to accessibility review.
Forms and Labels
A practical Field Guide page about labels, instructions, grouping, and required fields that help forms feel usable instead of like guessing games.
QA Keyboard Check
A practical no-mouse QA checklist for checking keyboard access, visible focus, focus order, traps, dialogs, forms, errors, and common interactive controls.
Review Readiness
A practical field note on checking common accessibility issues before formal review so teams can reduce avoidable rework.
How to Use This Guide
A practical pathfinding page for using the Accessibility Field Guide for immediate work, learning, training, and common accessibility review moments.
Accessibility Requirements Checklist
A checklist for turning early accessibility risks into requirements, acceptance criteria, design notes, and QA checks.
Intake Accessibility Questions Checklist
A quick checklist for spotting accessibility risks while a request is still early enough to shape.
Intake Accessibility Questions
A plainspoken set of questions teams can ask early so accessibility risks show up before design, development, and review rework.
Accessibility Skill Tree
A personal learning map for accessibility skills, built around practical branches of understanding rather than a pass/fail score.
Review Readiness Checklist
A pre-review checklist for keyboard access, forms, content, documents, vendor pieces, and review materials.
WCAG 2.1 A/AA Map
A plain-language orientation map for the 50 WCAG 2.1 Level A and AA success criteria, grouped by principle.
