How does accessibility fit into the Agile Methodology?

1. Agile Accessibility
From A Testers Perspective
Alicia Jarvis
Twitter: @ajarvis728
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/aliciajarvis

2. Agenda
• Introduction
• The Disability Market & Business Value
• The “Whole Team” Approach
• Overview of Agile/Scrum
• Agile (Extreme) Accessibility 101
• Mind Mapping
• Recap & Questions
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3. Introduction
“The Computer will be ‘the Great
Equalizer’. "
- H.C. (Cliff) Chadderton (Former CEO, The War Amps of
Canada-
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4. Creating Business Value:
Understanding The Disability Market
“The disability market is about the size of
China and is emerging as other markets
have in the past—1.3 billion people and
$1.2 trillion in annual disposable income."
- Return On Disability Group-
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5. 5
The “Whole Team” Approach
Whether you realize it or not, Quality (including accessibility) of the product is
already distributed amongst your project team…
• Architects
• UX Designers
• Usability test facilitators
• Developers/coders
• Testers
• Product Owners/Business
• Stakeholders & Vendors
We ALL have a collective responsibility…Accessibility MUST be included in the
Definition of Done!

6. Agile/Scrum Project Cycle
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7. Agile (Extreme) Accessibility
Starting Early Reduces Cost, Risk
Reduce risk with accessible
deliverables each Sprint
Ordered
Product
Backlog
Sprint
Backlog
Daily
Standup
Potentially Shippable
Product Increment
Tasks
Sprint
Retro
Sprint
Planning
Sprint
Goal
Accessibility tasks included
within each Sprint
Consider Sprint with goal
focused on accessibility
Reflect and continuously improve
build accessibility skills
Accessibility work items
to reduce technical debt
1-2 week Sprints
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8. Sprint “0” Planning
Develop Accessibility-Related User Stories:
• As keyboard-only user, I want the ability to reach all links (text or image), form
controls and page functions, so that I can perform an action or navigate to the
place I choose.
• As a screen reader user, I want to hear the text equivalent for each image
conveying information so that I don’t miss any information on the page.
• As a user who has trouble reading due to low vision, I want to be able to make the
text larger on the screen so that I can read it.
• As a user who is color blind, I want to have access to information conveyed in color
so that I do not miss anything and I understand the content.
• As a user who is hearing-impaired, I want closed captioning functionality so that I
can have access to all information provided in video clips.
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9. Daily Stand-Up
Actively Listen!
• This is your daily chance to actively listen to what the
whole team is doing
Speak UP!
• Communicate honestly and effectively
• Address accessibility concerns, issues and impediments
• Conflict resolution & ideas
• Is there something YOU or THE TEAM can be doing better?
Take Initiative & Responsibility!
• Hold yourself and your team accountable
• Escalate issues appropriately and through proper channels
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10. Release Planning
Based on user stories under development for each
release:
• Identify any applicable standards. What laws or guidelines
exist?
• For those standards, identify conformance and user acceptance
criteria
• Estimate Stories accordingly based on team effort
Refine roles and responsibilities of the team
• Does the team have the right people in the room?
Communicate early and often
• Any major impediments?
• Lessons learned?
• Deployment considerations and activities?
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11. 11
Sprint Planning
Unpacking and Refining the User Stories
• For each conformance and user acceptance criteria, identify best
practices to develop each user story
• Refine story estimates
• Include best practices in the Definition of Ready and Definition of Done
Create Accessibility-Related Tasks
• Unit Tests
• Automated Test Scripts
• Manual Tests
• AT Tests
• Usability Testing and Feedback
• Content considerations (on-screen & off-screen)
• Design considerations

12. Test Driven Development (TDD)
Developers, Quality Engineers and Manual Testers identify and
create accessibility tests before each build:
• Automated syntax testing
• Executes within seconds. Integrates accessibility testing into existing functional tests.
• We can leverage work of others
• Manual testing and inspection
• Keyboard, Inspection tools & techniques, Colour contrast analyzer tool, etc.
• Create and execute manual test cases
• Testing with Assistive Technology
• Screen readers (JAWS, NVDA, VoiceOver, Talkback)
• Zoom (ZoomText)
• Voice input (Dragon Naturally Speaking)
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13. 13
Automation & Continuous Integration
• aXe
• IBM Bluemix Automated Accessibility Tester (Experimental)
• Tenon
• PA11Y
• IBM AbilityLab Mobile Accessibility Checker

14. 14
Pro Tip:
We don’t have Accessibility problems…
We only have QUALITY
problems!

15. Problem Solving
• Defect Triage & Remediation
• Treat accessibility defects as you would any other bug
• Prioritize based on impact, time to fix
• Identify and address major Issues and impediments
• These can be ANYTHING!
• Resource/Skills gaps
• Test environment issues
• Personality conflicts
• Conflicting priorities
• Team comfort and structure
• Self-care and mental health
• Accomodations
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16. Remediation Matrix
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17. Remediation vs. Doing It Right
Avg. cost per defect = (num of devs * num of hours) *
cost per dev per hour
--------------------------------------------------
(number of fixed defects)
Some estimates in QA community calculate cost
around $500 per defect to find & fix defects and
deploy remediated code
• Dependent upon #of bugs, etc.
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18. Sprint Review & Retrospective
• Demos
• Be creative
• Screen-reader demos seem to go over very well with
stakeholders
• Invite accessibility partners and stakeholders
• Get their honest feedback!
• Ideas
• What’s working well?
• What needs improvement?
• What can we do better?
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19. Backlog Refinement
• Refine Releases, User Stories & Tasks
• Ensure any unmet accessibility requirements are put
into sprint backlog for re-inclusion next iteration
• Identify and address any possible unknowns or
problem areas
• Team participation with the Product Owner is key!
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20. Mind Mapping
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21. 21
QUESTIONS: