What are some of the tools and resources that you use for user research and web accessibility?

Mental walk-throughs are a cheap but effective technique to catch less obvious roadblocks. Consider your entire user journey: If users have to switch applications at any point, does it work smoothly for AT? If you have a clickable progress stepper, would it make more sense to focus it first or last on that page? What does your date picker sound like, and could you follow along without any visuals? It doesn't replace full accessibility audits but is a good exercise to train your brain to catch issues that are not explicitly written in the WCAG.

I agree, but automated tooling like WAVE, axe, or Lighthouse only tell part of the story. Only a fraction of barriers for people with disabilities can be identified with automation. The remainder of barriers require detailed manual testing by trained professionals and user testing with those with true lived experiences.

Cooper is spot on. This section being called "Accessibility Audits" and then recommending some free automated testing tools as the mechanism to perform this audit could mislead readers. Simply running an automated testing tools, especially when not done by an accessibility engineer, will at best cover about 25-30% or WCAG success criteria. For many organizations I've worked who do run these tools, they actually create a wide array of confusion with false positives or duplicated (sitewide) issues that pertain to a specific element or component but get listed as hundreds or thousands of individual errors. An "Audit" has to include live-user testing, if WCAG compliance and product usability is actually your goal.

This is the only way to ensure testing against the full spectrum of the WCAG success criteria. However, the importance of this goes beyond 'compliance' with WCAG. There are many digital properties that are highly compliant with WCAG - which is fantastic - but not overly usable to people with disabilities. This highlights the need for live-user testing in your accessibility roadmap! Here at Allyant, we have built a paired auditing process that we believe provides the most thorough accessibility and usability testing in the industry. In every occasion when testing for our clients, we pair a native screen reader with a sighted accessibility engineer to ensure the full experience is explained and supported to the assistive technology user.

Fable is another breakout vendor that specializes in user research with users of assistive technologies. Their software allows facilitators to customize assistive technology used in tests and receive a accessibility usability score (used to supplement SUS).

Manual accessibility testing is a great way to check code and service design changes early, before testing with users. Anyone on a team can help with manual accessibility testing, if they have been trained on how to do so. It generally involves testing with various assistive technology and browser combinations. For example, testing with JAWS on Edge, NVDA on Firefox, Windows High Contrast Mode on Google Chrome, VoiceOver on iOS with Safari, and so on. Testing with various input and output methods can also help save time in the design, prototyping and development phases. For example, navigating with only a keyboard, using a joystick instead of a mouse, using an on-screen keyboard, using an older mobile device, and more.

Checklists are great to help build awareness for broader teams, but accessibility is not a box to check! Additionally, unlike what most accessibility vendors, automated tools or checklists will lead you to believe, WCAG compliance is not black and white. There is not a single-fix for most any accessibility violation or barrier and in most cases there are multiple ways to resolve an accessibility barrier when properly fixed at the code level to create a usable experience. This is why it is critical to include manual testing in your accessibility journey and have expert consultants at your fingers when the inevitable questions arise from your design and development teams.

Checklists are only a starting point. You can check all the boxes and not have an inclusive customer experience. Always co-create and test with users with disabilities to deliver products and services that go beyond the legal minimums.

I agree that empathy is essential but simulating disability is not the same as living it. Working with people with disabilities, hiring them, and elevating their voices is a better path to empathy than simulations.

For user research, Google Analytics offer quantitative insights into user behavior. In web accessibility, Screen readers like JAWS and NVDA simulate experiences for visually impaired users. Color Contrast Analyzers ensure adherence to standards. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) provide a comprehensive framework. Deque University offer best practices. Inclusive Design Principles by Microsoft and Mozilla Developer Network (MDN) resources aid accessibility. Engage with communities on IAAP, Stack Overflow (Accessibility Tag) and WebAIM forums for developer insights. These tools and resources enhance user research and web accessibility efforts.

All the tools and techniques mentioned in this article (personas, checklists, audits etc) can be valuable, but what is not mentioned here is actually developing empathy. Have you ever tried unplugging your mouse (/disabling your trackpad)? Have you ever turned on the screen reader on your phone (warning, it's going to be hard to get out of it because the touchscreen changes mode)? Have you ever used the "curtain" mode (it makes your screen black) in NVDA? Give it a try, and you'll see how real the barrires of unfriendly technology are. Suddenly you'll appreciate how valuable it is to make a little effort to add descriptive labels to non text content, to include skip links, to ensure the tab order is correct etc.