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How should I prioritize remediation tasks?

Here are a few recommended strategies for determining how to prioritize and efficiently tackle this remediation work.

Strategy One: WCAG Versions & Levels

Remediation tasks can be addressed based on the corresponding WCAG version and/ or level. Conformance with WCAG 2.2 AA also means conformance with prior versions of WCAG.

When to Use This Strategy

  • You are legally obligated to conform to a specific level of WCAG
  • You want to prepare for future updates to accessibility laws
  • You want to advertise that you meet a certain WCAG conformance level

How to Get Started

In RAMP, you can use filter options to select a WCAG ruleset (for example, WCAG 2.0 A) and only display remediation tasks associated with that ruleset.

With this strategy (and assuming that you are attempting to achieve conformance with WCAG 2.2 AA), we’d suggest addressing tasks in the following order:

  1. 2.0A
  2. 2.0 AA
  3. 2.1A
  4. 2.1AA
  5. 2.2A
  6. 2.2 AA

 

Strategy Two: Impact

Address remediation tasks in order of user impact. Some accessibility issues completely prevent access, while others make completing tasks or observing content more difficult but not impossible. To provide the most drastic enhancements to the experience, the barriers should be addressed first.

When to Use This Strategy

  • When you want to provide drastic accessibility enhancements quickly.
  • Addressing user barriers is one of your top priorities.

How to Get Started

  1. Identify which issues are absolute barriers to access and which make access more difficult.
    1. Accessible Web is happy to help with this! Contact your accessibility specialist to get started.
  2. Complete the remediation tasks for issues identified as barriers first, working your way to the issues that make access more difficult.

 

Strategy 3: Quick Wins

Prioritizing remediation tasks that are easier to complete is a great way to use dev time efficiently while improving accessibility rapidly. Teams that are not already comfortable with accessibility work can become acquainted with the process and identify any knowledge gaps before diving into more difficult challenges.

When to Use This Strategy

  • The teams working on remediations are not already familiar with accessibility
  • You need to make progress quickly
  • You need time to prepare for larger-scale improvements

How to Get Started

  1. Associate a level of difficulty with each remediation task.

  2. Complete the easiest tasks first, working your way to the more difficult issues.

Remediation difficulty is dependent on the issue itself, your team’s knowledge, and technical constraints. Here are some examples of what we consider WCAG easy wins.

 

Strategy Four: Repeated Issues

Often, the same issue is present in multiple areas of a product. Identify repeated issues then address them concurrently. If the issues are repeated because the content originates from the same code base, one fix can be applied to remediate multiple issues.

If the issues are repeated, but the content does not come from the same code base, your team will know that the same fix can be applied to each, and the work will progress more quickly than if a resolution for each task is discussed individually.

When to Use This Strategy

  • You have a lot of repeated failures
  • Content comes from a shared code base

How to Get Started

  1. Identify repeated issues. For example, do you have a dropdown on multiple pages that fails for 4.1.2, Name Role Value?

    1. Reach out to your accessibility specialist; they can help explain any patterns that were noticed during the audit process.

    2. Use RAMP to filter by success criteria and look for repeated tasks.

  2. Address these repeated issues in groups.

 

Strategy Five: Location

There are likely some pages or screens within your product that users visit more often than others. To ensure that pages that users interact with the most are made accessible first, remediation tasks can be addressed on a template-by-template basis.

When to Use This Strategy

When some pages or screens receive more traffic than others.

How to Get Started

  1. Create a list of templates in order of traffic received

  2. Address issues on a template-by-template basis, starting at the top of the list

    1. When we deliver audit results, the remediation tasks are tagged with the name of the template to which they apply. In RAMP, use the filter options to choose the tag for the template you want to work on, so only those remediation tasks will be displayed.

General Notes

  • It is possible, and can be helpful, to combine multiple strategies. For example, prioritize by location and impact so that the remediations with the highest impact are applied to the pages with the most traffic first.
  • The “When to Use this Strategy” sections are purely recommendations. Any one of these strategies can be used at any time.
  • For help understanding or implementing these strategies, please reach out to your accessibility specialist.