At my job for another company (hey, who doesn’t have two jobs?), I am tasked with certifying the company’s software as WCAG compliant. From a theoretical point of view it should be easy. I should be able to understand and apply all of the WCAG rules to the portal, and then the goal is achieved. The problem is, this is not entirely within the spirit of WCAG. WCAG’s orienting spirit is to increase accessibility of web content to all user types. So in scenarios like this, the goal is to meet the checklist, rather than to have the goal of optimizing the user experience for all user types; things start getting uncomfortable for me.

This situation reminds me of Goodhart’s law: “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.”

Kind of like how the SAT for college bound students used to measure a student’s knowledge, but then morphed into the measurement of a student’s ability to take a test.

This puts me in an unpleasant spot and I don’t think there will be a good solution. Between one of the company’s big client is art directing what they want and also demanding WCAG 2.1 AA adherence, and the technical limitations of the coding/DB, I don’t think it is possible to meet WCAG.

The client keeps modifying the software which then needs to be re-tested and fixed to meet WCAG, so I am always behind the curve. I can’t certify something that is constantly changing.

Some of the strange interfaces that the client art directs seem very unintuitive, where the spirit of accessibility is to be intuitive to even users of low cognitive abilities. I am told that the users will know what they are doing and won’t be confused, so I do hope that is true for all users.

I don’t think I will be able to certify the website as meeting WCAG 2.1 AA, but it is my task to do it.

I seem to have the most experience at this within the team. I was able to get some team mates to do the WCAG training offered by the W3C, but not everyone did it, including the decision makers. So I am left trying to defend and explain accessibility to people who don’t know what it is. Occasionally, someone will try to cite a WCAG rule to defend their design decision, but they are not referencing the rule per what it asks for.

I am a graphic designer / UI/UX designer at this company. I do know HTML/CSS and that has helped in identifying deficiencies in WCAG 2.1 AA. I was tasked with leading this charge because no one else understood this as well as me. Yet, when I am asked to meet this goal in principle, I am also asked to go against it for specific interfaces that the client art directed.

As a funny aside, since my job scope has now so much accessibility history in it, I have been getting recruiter emails for more WCAG jobs. Even though I think it is important in design, I don’t think I could live only doing WCAG testing. I’d feel too much like a mom to people who don’t know how to check their code and what the WCAG rules are.

I am stuck between a rock and a hard place. Even though I appreciate and value WCAG, I feel like it is more of a task to rubber stamp this chore as certified. It’s like meeting the rules, but not necessarily meeting the intent behind the rules is what is being sought.

Even just today, in a meeting where I was explaining how a UI was very unintuitive, I was yelled at and told to “come to Jesus” to just accept it. I feel like some of these problems could have been solved by involving me, the designer and WCAG expert, in the beginning. Now that the team has rushed our a new UI without even asking me once, the PM does not want to change it because it is already released. The team is happy to take my advisement on changing the colour contrast ratio and screen reader ARIAs which are specific narrow items to change, but when I want them to take a step back and look at the UI as a whole as being confusing, they don’t want to budge because it does not break a specific WCAG guideline. Breaking the spirit is not enough to merit change but I think it is also breaking my spirit too.

Part of this is the colour contrast rule and screen reader labels are a hard rule that is technically passed or failed, but the WCAG advisements to make UIs clear to understand leaves room for interpretation. What exactly is the threshold for easy? What does easy look like? I mean, as a designer, I can see it and know it. It’d probably involve the core principles of design, like hierarchy, alignment, font weights, unity/variety, etc.

The other part of the problem is this is the UI that the client wanted (from what I am told, I was not there). I suppose no one wanted to tell them this would make the UI confusing. Since the design was like that before, that is what they wanted perpetuated. Funny enough, this vision from the client is the only way or programmers can manage to make it work, so isn’t that a lucky coincidence?

I suppose I am not the only one out there. Tasked to certify a website, but not really sure if it is the right thing to do. I suppose I will drudge on without much of a plan. Heck, many of my tickets to fix the low hanging fruit problems are constantly pushed back from the schedule, so maybe I won’t actually get to the point of certifying the website at any point? Part of me does want the task “done,” but even if we do meet the minimum guidelines that aren’t up for interpretation, I am still likely to be me; I am still likely going to be my own torturer and work to improve the UI/UX past the bare bones, rather than letting it all rest. Let’s hope I don’t lose my hair folks.

I suppose this is a bit of a rant for me, but where else to share this but in my own blog?