What are your best practices for ensuring website accessibility?

Using Lighthouse in Chrome Dev Tools is a good start, but remember, there's no official certification for ADA compliance. Just ensure to follow best practices as much as possible.

1. Start with a headless library that already accounts for accessibility, like Radix or Base UI.
2. Implement a linter to flag accessibility issues in your code.
3. Ensure that any third-party components you introduce (like graphs or multi-select dropdowns) also prioritize accessibility.

Adopting an accessibility-first approach is crucial, similar to how we think about responsive design. It's much easier to create a fully accessible site when you incorporate accessibility from the beginning rather than trying to fix issues later.

The most straightforward advice is to avoid adding elements that hinder accessibility. Stick to standard, well-tested methods, use the right elements, and ensure essential features are prominent on your site.

For me, the biggest game changer was changing my mindset regarding accessibility from a check-list item at the end of the project to something my tools enforce from the start. I use eslint-plugin-jsx-a11y, which helps catch issues like missing alt text and ARIA violations during development. For keyboard navigation, sticking to semantic HTML is key—using the appropriate elements like and instead of

with onClick handlers gives you keyboard and screen reader support automatically. Other little things I'd include are a skip-to-content link that reveals itself when focused, focus-visible styles that are actually apparent, and prefers-reduced-motion media queries for any animations, since that really impacts those with vestibular disorders. Honestly, just getting these basics down will position you well ahead of most sites.