Accessibility — Ship WCAG 2.2 AA, not vibes

The bar is conformance to WCAG 2.2 Level AA. "Looks fine to me" is not a measurement. Fix the semantics, scan what a machine can scan, then walk the part it can't.

The loop (your 30-second model)

Run these in order. Skipping a step front-loads rework.

1. Native semantics first. A real <button> ships focus, keyboard, and role for free. Most "a11y bugs" are a <div> doing a button's job.
2. Automated scan. axe-core catches roughly 57% of WCAG issues — missing labels, bad roles, contrast (in a real browser), duplicate ids. Cheap, run it every commit.
3. Manual checklist for the rest. The other ~43% — keyboard order, focus traps, meaningful alt text, screen-reader flow — no engine can judge. A human (or you, deliberately) must.

Decision rule: never ship on a green axe run alone. A clean automated scan means "no machine-detectable failures," not "accessible." Treat it as necessary, never sufficient.

Legal stakes are real: the EU European Accessibility Act became enforceable 2025-06-28 for many consumer products and services, on top of EN 301 549 / ADA. AA is the line.

Rule 0 — reach for HTML before ARIA

The first rule of ARIA is: don't use ARIA. If a native element gives you the semantics and behavior, use it. Every role you add is behavior you now owe by hand — focus, keyboard, state.

<!-- Bad: zero keyboard, no role, no focus, no Enter/Space -->
<div class="btn" onclick="save()">Save</div>

<!-- Good: focusable, Enter/Space fire it, announced as "Save, button" -->
<button type="button" onclick="save()">Save</button>

You want…	Use native…	Not…
A click action	<button type="button">	<div role="button" onClick>
Navigation	<a href="…">	<span onClick> + JS routing
Show/hide section	<details><summary>	hand-rolled aria-expanded
Form field	<input>/<select>	contenteditable div
Modal	<dialog> + showModal()	a div with role="dialog"

Reach for ARIA only when no native element fits (tabs, comboboxes, toasts) — and then copy a vetted pattern (→ references/aria-patterns.md).

Semantics & accessible names

• One <h1> per page. Headings describe structure; never skip a level (<h2> then <h4>) to get a font size — that's a CSS job.
• Landmark every region: <header> <nav> <main> <footer>. Exactly one <main>. Screen-reader users jump by landmark; a wall of <div> has no map.
• Skip link first in the DOM so keyboard users escape the nav: <a href="#main" class="sr-only-focusable">Skip to content</a>.
• Accessible name precedence (what a screen reader announces), highest wins: aria-labelledby → aria-label → associated <label> / element text → title. Don't stack them hoping one sticks; pick one source.

<!-- Bad: announced as just "button" -->
<button><svg aria-hidden="true">…</svg></button>

<!-- Good: announced as "Close dialog, button" -->
<button aria-label="Close dialog"><svg aria-hidden="true">…</svg></button>

A placeholder is not a label — it vanishes on input and many SRs ignore it. Use a real <label for>.

Keyboard operability

Everything a mouse can do, a keyboard must do.

• All interactive elements reachable and operable with Tab + Enter/Space. Native controls give this free; custom ones don't.
• Tab order follows the DOM. Fix order by reordering markup, not by patching tabindex.
• Never a positive tabindex. Only 0 (in natural order) or -1 (focusable by script, skipped by Tab). A positive value hijacks the whole page's order and breaks the next dev's mental model.
• Visible focus, always (see next section). If you can't tell where focus is with the mouse unplugged, neither can the user.

Overlays (dialogs, menus, drawers) need focus management — three obligations:

1. Move focus in when it opens (to the dialog or its first control).
2. Trap focus inside while open — Tab from the last element wraps to the first.
3. Escape closes, and focus returns to the trigger that opened it.

Composite widgets (menus, tabs, grids) use roving tabindex: one element is tabindex="0", the rest -1, arrow keys move the 0. Full keyboard tables per pattern — modal, disclosure, tabs, combobox, menu, toast → references/aria-patterns.md.

Visible focus & the WCAG 2.2 deltas

/* Bad: kills the focus ring with nothing in its place */
:focus { outline: none; }

/* Good: ring only for keyboard users, not mouse clicks */
:focus-visible { outline: 3px solid; outline-offset: 2px; }

WCAG 2.2 (W3C Recommendation, 2023-10-05) adds 9 success criteria and removes 4.1.1 Parsing. The six that matter at Level AA — know the numbers:

• 2.4.11 Focus Not Obscured (Minimum) — a focused element must not be fully hidden behind sticky headers/footers or cookie bars.
• 2.5.7 Dragging Movements — anything done by dragging (sliders, reorder, map pan) needs a single-pointer alternative (tap, buttons).
• 2.5.8 Target Size (Minimum) — interactive targets are at least 24×24 CSS px, unless spacing keeps a 24px-radius circle from overlapping a neighbor (the spacing exception). 44×44 is the comfort bar; 24 is the floor.
• 3.2.6 Consistent Help — help mechanisms appear in the same relative order across pages.
• 3.3.7 Redundant Entry — don't make users re-enter info they already gave in the same process; auto-fill or let them pick it.
• 3.3.8 Accessible Authentication (Minimum) — no cognitive-function test to log in (no puzzles, no "transcribe this", no math). Allow paste, password managers, and copy.

Contrast & color

Measured ratios, AA minimums:

• 4.5:1 for normal text.
• 3:1 for large text (≥24px, or ≥18.66px bold).
• 3:1 for UI components and graphical objects you must perceive (1.4.11) — input borders, icon glyphs, chart segments.

Never encode meaning in color alone (1.4.1). A red border on an invalid field is invisible to many users — pair it with text and an icon.

<!-- Bad: only color signals the error -->
<input class="border-red-500" aria-invalid="true">

<!-- Good: text + icon + programmatic association -->
<input aria-invalid="true" aria-describedby="email-err">
<p id="email-err">⚠ Enter a valid email address.</p>

Note: jsdom can't compute contrast (no real layout/paint), so jest-axe disables the rule. Verify contrast in a real browser (Playwright / Lighthouse) or by hand.

ARIA done right

Mental model: Name, Role, Value. Every custom control needs an accessible name, the right role, and current state/value — and you must keep state in sync.

• State attributes: aria-expanded on a disclosure trigger, aria-controls pointing at what it toggles, aria-selected / aria-current for the active item. Toggle them in the same handler that changes the visual state.
• Live regions announce async changes without moving focus:
  • aria-live="polite" — wait for a pause (status, "Saved", search-result counts). Default choice.
  • aria-live="assertive" — interrupt now (form submit error, session-expiry). Use sparingly.
• Hiding — pick the right one:

Technique	Visual	Screen reader	Use for
display:none	gone	gone	truly removed content
aria-hidden=true	shown	hidden	decorative visuals — never on a focusable element
.sr-only class	hidden	read	labels/skip links for SR users only

<!-- Bad: focusable AND hidden from SR = a keyboard trap nobody can hear -->
<button aria-hidden="true">Menu</button>

<!-- Good: decorative icon hidden, the button keeps its name -->
<button aria-label="Menu"><svg aria-hidden="true">…</svg></button>

Automate it (versioned, 2026-06-02)

Three layers — each catches what the cheaper one can't.

Lint (static, JSX only) — eslint-plugin-jsx-a11y 6.10.2. Catches missing alt, label-less inputs, positive tabindex, invalid roles, at edit time.

// .eslintrc — extends, then runs in your existing lint step
{ "extends": ["plugin:jsx-a11y/recommended"] }

Unit (fast, no browser) — jest-axe 10.0.0. Asserts no axe violations on rendered output. Remember: contrast is off in jsdom.

import { axe, toHaveNoViolations } from "jest-axe";
expect.extend(toHaveNoViolations);

test("no a11y violations", async () => {
  const { container } = render(<SignupForm />);
  expect(await axe(container)).toHaveNoViolations();
});

Browser (the real thing, catches contrast) — @axe-core/playwright 4.11.3 (on axe-core 4.12.0). Scope it to the WCAG 2.2 AA tags:

import AxeBuilder from "@axe-core/playwright";

const results = await new AxeBuilder({ page })
  .withTags(["wcag2a", "wcag2aa", "wcag22aa"])
  .analyze();
expect(results.violations).toEqual([]);

Lighthouse a11y score is a smoke signal for a quick pulse, not proof — it runs a subset of axe and gives a number, not a pass.

scripts/verify.sh ties this together: it detects whatever tooling the project has and runs it, failing only on serious/critical violations (read-only, skips cleanly when no tooling is present).

Manual checklist (the ~43% a machine can't see)

Do these by hand before you call it done:

• Unplug the mouse. Tab through the entire flow — every control reachable, order logical, focus always visible, no trap, Escape closes overlays.
• One screen-reader spot check — VoiceOver (macOS, ⌘F5) or NVDA (Windows). Do names, roles, and state read sensibly? Are errors announced?
• Zoom to 200% — no content lost, no horizontal scroll, nothing clipped.
• prefers-reduced-motion honored — no autoplay parallax/animation that ignores it.
• Alt text is meaningful, not decorative-as-content — informative images describe; decorative images use alt="".

Full AA checklist grouped by POUR, with the per-item auto/manual split and the 6 new 2.2 criteria flagged → references/wcag22-checklist.md.

Anti-patterns

Anti-pattern	Why it fails	Do instead
<div role="button" onClick>	No keyboard, no focus, you owe all behavior by hand	<button>
outline: none with no replacement	Keyboard users lose all focus location (2.4.7)	:focus-visible ring
Positive tabindex (tabindex="3")	Hijacks page tab order, breaks for everyone	DOM order + tabindex="0"/-1
Placeholder as the only label	Disappears on input, many SRs skip it	real <label for>
aria-label on a non-interactive <div> text	Duplicates or overrides visible text confusingly	label only interactive/landmark elements
aria-hidden="true" on a focusable element	Reachable by Tab but silent — a trap	remove from tab order too, or don't hide it
Error shown by red color only	Invisible to color-blind / low-vision users (1.4.1)	color + text + icon, aria-describedby
Redundant role="button" on <button>	Noise; native role is already correct	drop the role
Shipping on a green axe run	Covers ~57%; keyboard/SR/cognitive untested	run the manual checklist
Autoplaying motion, no reduced-motion guard	Triggers vestibular disorders (2.3.3)	gate behind prefers-reduced-motion

Hand off to

• Test harness, render setup, fixtures, CI runner mechanics → ../testing-web/SKILL.md (this skill supplies the a11y assertions that run inside it)
• Full browser-driven flow orchestration → ../e2e-testing/SKILL.md
• Visual intent, color palette, spacing scale → ../design/SKILL.md (this skill checks the contrast/target-size outcome, not the aesthetic)
• Framework component architecture → ../react/SKILL.md / ../nextjs/SKILL.md
• Page speed / LCP / Core Web Vitals tuning → the performance skill (not an a11y concern)