Rescue the Dead Horse

Rescue the Dead Horse Eva Ferreira – Shift Conference, 2021

First trip since Feb. 2020

Hi! I’m Eva :)

Dead horse? @evaferreira92

Beating a Dead horse @evaferreira92

To waste time and effort trying to do something that
is impossible. “ ” Mr. Merriam-Webster

Tech Debt.

TECH DEBT.

Memes as a coping mechanism

@evaferreira92

What is Technical Debt? And… what isn’t Technical Debt?

¿Bad Code?

Bad Code = Lack Lack of knowledge, lack of caring,
lack of quality control

Bad code is usually more harmful than Techical Debt @evaferreira92

¿Tech Debt?

Technical Debt is a conscious Trade-off

It happens when we choose to gain something otherwise-unattainable immediately
in return for paying it back (with interest) later on. “ ” Mr. Harry Roberts

The Theming Example

!important all the things

This is my garbage and I’m proud of it. @evaferreira92

@evaferreira92

Congrats! You have just created Technical Debt! Now… will you
repay? @evaferreira92

Consequences of not repaying • Accumulates interests • Snowball effect
• Team members are sad @evaferreira92

Repaying Tech Debt The Accessibility Part

An annual accessibility analysis of the top 1,000,000 home pages

How many passed a basic WCAG test?

WCAG includes (but not limited to) • Alternative texts for
images • AA Contrast ratios • Labels for inputs • Document language attribute • Buttons and links with discernable texts @evaferreira92

At least 20%? @evaferreira92 At least 10%? At least05%?

Only 2,6% passed. @evaferreira92

Most common errors • Lack of alternative texts for images
• Non-compliance color contrasts • Lack of labels for inputs • Lack of document language attribute • Buttons and links without discernable texts @evaferreira92

Fun facts “Despite being 2021, 14,501 home pages had <marquee>
and 341 home pages had blinking content (<blink> or text-decoration: blink).” https://webaim.org/projects/million/

Why does this happen? Lack of accessibility is more often
than not, a conscious trade-off.

How do we begin repaying? Repaying accessibility technical debt

Current Tech Debt Improvements to current a11y bugs

Spare time to improve it • Small, well-defined tasks 
15% of sprint • Fix bugs • Rebuild broken components • Build new features  Skip navigation, etc. @evaferreira92

Track and document @evaferreira92

You can’t repay what you don’t acknowledge @evaferreira92

Avoid creating more (Accessibility Technical Debt)

Long term warning! The following recommendations might take soooome time

Cultural change in the company You need people who care.
@evaferreira92

Update processes • Automated tests  Built into CI •
Manual tests • QA Process • Internal demos with Screen Reader @evaferreira92

Design Systems • Fix a11y here!  Colors, contrast, font-sizes,
font families  Labels and alts • Whatever what Brad Frost and Jina Anne say @evaferreira92

https://bradfrost.com/blog/post/enforcing-accessibility-best-practices- with-automatically-generated-ids/ by Brad Frost

@evaferreira92

Hire Front-end developers @evaferreira92

No code can fix bad design. If the design is
inaccessible, so is the website.

Bad UX flows

@evaferreira92

Team work It’s not 1999 with webmasters doing the whole
thing anymore

You can’t avoid Tech Debt But you CAN avoid putting
the burden on users with disabilities

Thank you! @evaferreira92

Rescue the Dead Horse

Rescue the Dead Horse

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