Accessibility

Tools

Cloud Manager makes use of the Reach UI component library to help make the app accessible. Reach UI contains many component primitives which conform to WAI-ARIA standards.

Currently Cloud Manager uses the Tabs and Menu Button Reach UI components, though we are interested in moving more of our Material UI components over to Reach UI.

This project also uses the jsx-a11y eslint extension, which enforces accessibility best practices in JSX code:

<div onClick={() => alert("hi!")}>Click me!</div>
// ^^ error: "Visible, non-interactive elements with click handlers must have at least one keyboard listener."

Auditing for accessibility issues

Google Lighthouse is a great way to audit for potential accessibility issues in the app. To run a report, visit the "Lighthouse" tab in Chrome Dev Tools and select "Accessibility" as a category.

To check screen-reader functionality, you may use MacOS's built-in screen-reader (VoiceOver) or download JAWS and NVDA for Windows. NVDA is free and open-source but JAWS requires a license. A free demo is available that can be run for 40 minutes before it reboots.