Accessibility In The Mobile
Development Lifecycle

Name: Mark Steadman
Title: Director, Mobile Accessibility
Company: Fidelity Investments
Name: Zach Gadoury
Title: Senior Accessibility Engineer
Company: Fidelity Investments
Hi There!

Why Does Mobile A11y
Matter?
• Global traffic on mobile devices has increased from 6% in 2011, to 54% in 2021
• Anything and everything has a mobile app now.
• Some sites even force you to USE the mobile app
• Quick, easy access:
• Communication
• Ride Sharing
• Banking
• Food delivery/Grocery Delivery
Source Credit: https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/mobile/

Assistive Technology
Usage
A study was done on Assistive technology usage in the Netherlands:
Android
• 59% of users have one or
more accessibility setting on.
• 22% have more than one
accessibility setting on.
iOS
• 45% of users have one or
more accessibility setting on.
• 15% have more than one
accessibility setting on.
Source Credit: https://appt.org/en

The Problem:
Mobile & A11y In Development
No Information Standards? Slows Down Dev
• Difficult to find a11y info
• Resources are scattered
• Trying to mimic web in
mobile
• WCAG Applied to mobile
• UAAG
• HIG
• Testing takes too long
• Applying a11y is
difficult
• Too hard to learn it all

The Solution:
Keep Velocity, Add A11y
• Introduce accessibility into the development
lifecycle without slowing down the
development process
• We achieve this by breaking it into
phases.
• Piece by piece, bit by bit accessibility
gets introduced and ACCEPTED as a
practice
• We want to make it so “I will get to
Accessibility later” is no longer a statement
being made!

Small Wins, For Big
Gains

Phasing In Accessibility
• Phase 1: Automation
• Linting
• Automated Testing Tools
• Automated Testing Libraries
• Phase 2: Quick Manual Tests
• Visual Testing
• Quick Assistive Technology Checks
• Phase 3: Definition of Done
• Phase 0: ‘Ten minutes a day’ Accessibility learning

Phase 1: Automation

Linting
• A linter is a tool that statically analyzes source code to flag programming errors and bugs
• This includes Accessibility!
• Benefits of Accessible Linting
• Catching issues as you build HTML content
• Building accessibility knowledge for your developers
• Allows your team to build an accessible gate on commit
• Customizable to the framework you are developing in

Linting
• Linting is built directly into Android studio
using the Android Testing Framework to
check for issues as you code
• Quick and reliable
• Helps developers learn from general
accessibility mistakes as they code
• Linting for accessibility issues is a bit
more difficult in iOS
• Very few linters have accessibility
checks
• SwiftLint
• Two accessibility checks
• Only for SwiftUI
• Xiblint (By Lyft)
• Storyboard accessibility checker
Android iOS

Linting Demo

Automated Testing Tools
• Google Accessibility Scanner
• Application that can scan your content for
accessibility issues
• Has around 14 or so checks
• Easy to use and very simple to run after
your application is built
• Xcode Accessibility Inspector (Audit)
• Built into Xcode
• UIKit and SwiftUI
• Allows you to run an audit of your
content and catch accessibility
issues
Android
iOS

Automated Testing
Libraries
• Accessibility Test Framework
• An Espresso testing library that
checks for accessibility issues in
automated UI tests
• Simple setup, and easy to
implement for each different UI
test case
• A11yUITests
• Open source testing library by
Rob Whitaker
• Super easy integration
• Allows you choice of testing
suite and what views to test
• Works with both UIKit and
SwiftUI
Android iOS

Automated Testing Libraries

Phase 2: Quick Manual
Tests

'Minute to win it’ Test Cases
• Quick screen reader tests:
• Roles for Actions
• Headers
• Appropriate Accessible Text
• Image Descriptions
• Quick visual tests:
• Persistent and Visible Labels
• Use of Color
• Images of Text
• Text Resizing
• Heading and Structure
• Flashing Content
Testing doesn’t have to take forever! ”Minute to win it” test cases can help create a much more accessible
app, with very little effort! Here are some examples!

Demo: Screen
Reader Test

Demo: Visual Test

Phase 0: Ten Minutes
of A11y a Day

Ten Minutes a Day
• As simple as the title, take 10 minutes a day for accessibility knowledge gathering.
• Taking an accessibility training course
• W3 Accessibility Foundations (Free)
• Udacity Web Accessibility (Free)
• Deque University (Paid Subscription)
• Reading accessibility article:
• The A11y Project
• A11y Weekly
• WebAIM News Letter
10 minutes 20 minutes 40 minutes 1 Hour

Phase 3: Build
Definition of Done

Building a DOD for A11y
• The ultimate goal is to have accessibility be apart of definition of done
• Truthfully, it may take some time to get to this point.
• Working with Product Owners to get buy-in for adding more to definition of done is a fight in and of
itself
• This can come in a varying different ways, however in its simplest form we want it to
enforce the phases we have laid out previously

Example Definition of Done

Bringing it home
• Following these simple phases can help ensure:
• Enforce the importance of accessibility
• Not slow down delivery velocity
• Not overwhelm developers to “do accessibility now”
• Build developer knowledge of accessibility
• At the end of the day the goal is to create developers that truly care about the
content that they create and build a culture of accessibility that is lasts and
endures

Name: Mark Steadman
: @Steady5063
: Mark Steadman (Mark-Steady)
Connect With Us
Name: Zach Gadoury
: @ZachGadoury
: Zach Gadoury(Mark-Steady)