Accessibility (A11y) training

Lesson 1 • The Business and Legal Case

Presents market size, litigation risk, and brand value arguments for accessibility investment. Connects organisational incentives to technical compliance goals.

Lesson 2 • Core Accessibility Principles

Introduces the four POUR principles—Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, Robust—as the conceptual backbone of all accessibility evaluation.

Lesson 3 • Accessibility Standards Landscape

Maps WCAG versions, conformance levels A/AA/AAA, and related standards. Provides the reference framework used throughout the entire course.

Lesson 4 • Understanding Disability and Access

Covers the social vs. medical disability models and how each shapes design decisions. Grounds all subsequent technical work in human-centred reasoning.

Lesson 1 • Accessible Forms and Inputs

Covers label association, fieldset grouping, and error identification. Forms are the highest-failure-rate component in accessibility audits.

Lesson 2 • Tables, Lists, and Data Structures

Teaches markup for data tables, layout avoidance, and list semantics. Ensures complex content relationships are machine-readable.

Lesson 3 • Accessible Links and Buttons

Distinguishes link vs. button semantics and accessible naming patterns. Prevents the most common interactive-element failures in audits.

Lesson 4 • HTML Semantics and Meaning

Explains how browsers expose HTML elements to the accessibility tree. Establishes why semantic markup outperforms ARIA-patched generic elements.

Lesson 1 • Landmark and Widget Roles

Covers abstract, widget, and document structure roles with correct usage patterns. Enables developers to build custom components with proper semantic identity.

Lesson 2 • ARIA Patterns for Common Widgets

Applies ARIA Authoring Practices Guide patterns to modals, tabs, accordions, and menus. Produces production-ready component blueprints.

Lesson 3 • Live Regions and Dynamic Content

Teaches aria-live, aria-atomic, and aria-relevant for announcing dynamic updates. Critical for single-page apps where content changes without page reload.

Lesson 4 • ARIA Fundamentals and Rules

Introduces the five rules of ARIA use and the role/state/property taxonomy. Prevents the common mistake of overusing ARIA where native HTML suffices.

Lesson 1 • Focus Management in Dynamic UIs

Teaches when and how to move focus programmatically in SPAs and modals. Prevents focus loss and disorientation during content updates.

Lesson 2 • Keyboard Traps and Escape Patterns

Addresses intentional focus containment in modals vs. unintentional traps. Ensures users can always navigate freely or exit contained contexts.

Lesson 3 • Custom Keyboard Interaction Patterns

Implements arrow-key navigation for composite widgets like trees, grids, and toolbars. Aligns custom components with user expectations from native OS controls.

Lesson 4 • Keyboard Interaction Fundamentals

Covers native keyboard behaviour, tab order, and focus indicators. Establishes the baseline every keyboard-only and AT user depends on.

Lesson 1 • Motion, Animation, and Flashing

Covers prefers-reduced-motion, animation duration, and flash thresholds. Protects users with vestibular disorders and photosensitive epilepsy.

Lesson 2 • Colour Contrast Requirements

Covers WCAG contrast ratios for text, UI components, and graphical objects. Contrast failures are the most frequently cited WCAG violation globally.

Lesson 3 • Layout, Spacing, and Reflow

Addresses responsive reflow at 320px width and content linearisation. Ensures mobile and zoom users access all content without horizontal scrolling.

Lesson 4 • Typography and Readability

Covers font size, line height, letter spacing, and text resize behaviour. Supports users with dyslexia, low vision, and cognitive disabilities.

Lesson 1 • Accessible Data Visualisations

Applies text alternatives, table equivalents, and ARIA to charts and graphs. Ensures data insights are not locked behind visual-only representations.

Lesson 2 • Documents and PDF Accessibility

Covers PDF tagging, reading order, and form field accessibility in documents. PDFs remain a dominant format with high accessibility failure rates.

Lesson 3 • Captions and Subtitles

Distinguishes closed captions, open captions, and subtitles with quality standards. Captions serve deaf users, non-native speakers, and noisy environments.

Lesson 4 • Audio Descriptions and Transcripts

Covers standard and extended audio descriptions plus full transcripts. Enables blind users to access visual information in video content.

Lesson 1 • Manual Testing Techniques

Teaches keyboard-only walkthroughs, screen reader testing scripts, and zoom testing. Manual checks surface the 70% of issues automation cannot detect.

Lesson 2 • Conducting a WCAG Audit

Applies a structured WCAG success-criteria evaluation methodology to real pages. Produces consistent, reproducible findings across auditors.

Lesson 3 • User Testing with Disabled Participants

Designs and facilitates usability sessions with AT users. Real user feedback surfaces barriers that technical audits miss entirely.

Lesson 4 • Writing Actionable Audit Reports

Structures findings, severity ratings, and remediation recommendations for developer and executive audiences. Reports drive actual fixes, not just documentation.

Lesson 1 • Agile and DevOps Integration

Embeds a11y into definition of done, sprint reviews, and automated pipelines. Prevents accessibility debt from accumulating across release cycles.

Lesson 2 • Roles, Responsibilities, and Champions

Defines a11y ownership across design, engineering, QA, and content roles. Distributed ownership prevents single-point-of-failure accessibility programmes.

Lesson 3 • Measuring and Reporting Accessibility Maturity

Introduces maturity models, KPIs, and dashboards for tracking organisational progress. Quantified progress sustains leadership investment and team motivation.

Lesson 4 • Accessibility in Design Systems

Embeds a11y into component libraries, design tokens, and documentation. Accessible design systems multiply impact by making the default the accessible choice.