Building an Accessibility Testing Process That Actually Sticks

Questions answered by this guide

• ?Why does our accessibility testing process keep getting skipped?
• ?How do we make an accessibility process actually stick long-term?
• ?What makes a QA process survive staff turnover?
• ?How often should we revisit our testing process itself?

What you'll learn

• A written process and a followed process are different things, most fail at the second one
• The most common failure is silent: not abandoned on purpose, just skipped once, then again, until it's gone
• Four things make a process durable: attach it to an existing workflow, make skipping visible, keep it lightweight, and revisit it periodically

What's inside

L&D managers who have a testing process on paper but see it skipped under deadline pressure

1. 01Why written processes quietly die
2. 02Attach it to a workflow that already exists
3. 03Make skipping visible, not invisible
4. 04Keep it lightweight enough to survive a deadline
5. 05Revisit and adjust it on purpose

Why it matters

A process that only works when someone remembers to follow it isn't really a process, it's a preference, and preferences are the first thing dropped under deadline pressure. The gap between a documented SOP and what a team actually does under pressure is where most accessibility problems in shipped courses actually come from, not from the process being wrong on paper.

Best practices

• Attach testing to a step that already has to happen anyway, like the final sign-off before publishing, rather than a separate step someone has to remember to add.
• Make skipping visible: a required field, a checklist that has to be completed before a course can be marked ready, something a person has to actively bypass rather than just quietly not do.
• Keep the process lightweight enough to survive a real deadline, a process that only works when there's plenty of time isn't a process, it's a best-case scenario.
• Revisit the process itself every few months, not just the courses going through it, ask whether it's actually being followed, and if not, why not.
• When someone who owned the process leaves, treat re-assigning it as an explicit action item, not something that happens automatically.

Common mistakes

• Writing a thorough SOP once and never checking months later whether it's actually being followed.
• Making the process heavy enough that it's the first thing cut when a deadline tightens.
• Losing the process entirely when the one person who set it up leaves or changes roles.

Frequently asked questions

Summary

Most accessibility testing processes don't fail because they were designed wrong, they fail because nothing made skipping them visible or costly. Attach testing to a step that already has to happen, make skipping something a person has to actively choose, keep it light enough to survive a deadline, and revisit it on purpose.