Fix accessibility defects by a deadline

How to do it

A blocker is a barrier with no way around it, such as a payment button a screen reader cannot reach. Treat it like an outage, as people cannot buy or sign in. Other failures still break the law where one applies, so give each a date. A gap you cannot fix in 90 days goes into the statement with its fix date. The statement rule is Publish how each service meets the accessibility rules. Reports from customers through the statement's feedback route enter the same queue.

Examples

JavaScript example

const DAY = 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000;
const overdue = issues.filter(issue =>
  (issue.labels.includes('a11y-blocker') && workingDaysSince(issue.created) > 5) ||
  (issue.labels.includes('a11y') && Date.now() - issue.created > 90 * DAY && !knownGaps.has(issue.id)));
if (overdue.length) throw new Error(`Overdue accessibility defects: ${overdue.map(i => i.id).join(', ')}`);

Python example

overdue = [
    issue for issue in issues
    if ("a11y-blocker" in issue.labels and working_days_since(issue.created) > 5)
    or ("a11y" in issue.labels and (now - issue.created).days > 90 and issue.id not in known_gaps)
]
if overdue:
    raise SystemExit(f"Overdue accessibility defects: {[i.id for i in overdue]}")

How to check

A daily job reads the issue tracker. No open issue labelled a11y-blocker is older than 5 working days. No open issue labelled a11y is older than 90 days, unless the statement lists it.

Sources

• W3C WAI – Planning and Managing Web Accessibility

Related rules

• AXS-79 Give accessibility one owner per product in Accessibility
• AXS-58 Publish how each service meets the accessibility rules in Accessibility