Accessibility
One in five people today have some form of disability. These disabilities range from vision, cognitive and hearing to movement and muscle control. This means that 20% of the users of your app have one of these disabilities. It is important to make sure your app is accessible to your users. The first step is to test your app for accessibility and discover the areas where users with special needs will have trouble.
Accessibility Compliance (WCAG2 AA):
Provide evidence of accessibility compliance testing of your application. AMP for Mobile reports for iOS apps, and Google Accessibility Scanner for Android apps are the standard solutions to provide test results. Other tools and forms of evidence may be considered as long as the MCoE certification team approves. Accessibility related defects should be logged in your defect tracking system. With Section 508 going into effect in 2018, Class A Consumer Apps must provide evidence of accessibility testing starting in 2018 to be certified by MCoE.
Accessibilty Case Studies
The design team have done various case studies on Accessibilty. They can be found here
Accessibility Management Platform
The Accessibility Management Platform (AMP) is a web-based platform that provides a scalable, turnkey solution for meeting Section 508, Americans with Disabilities (ADA) and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) compliance needs. For more details, see the AMP page.
Google Accessibility Scanner
Google’s Accessibility Scanner is a tool that suggests accessibility improvements for Android apps without requiring technical skills. Just open the app you want to scan, then tap the Accessibility Scanner button to find items in the app that might benefit from accessibility improvements. You can use this app to suggest changes to developers or to make changes yourself.
For more information about accessibility on Google platforms, see the Google Accessibility site.
iOS Accessibility
There are many development resources available on Apple’s Accessibility on iOS. You can verify your iOS app’s accessibility using the Accessibility Inspector included with Xcode.