WCAG AA in practice: the testing loop behind every portal

Accessibility fails in the gap between the guidelines and the pull request. Closing that gap is a process problem, and after years of shipping portals that must pass audits, ours looks like this.

The loop

• Design tokens encode contrast, focus and touch target rules, so compliance is the default path.
• Every component ships with keyboard only test notes in the PR description.
• Screen reader passes happen during the build, on the flows that matter, not the week before launch.
• Each release ends with a manual audit of the top journeys against a fixed checklist.

What it buys

Beyond the legal floor: interfaces that work for tired users, one handed users, small screens and slow connections. Accessibility work is usability work that pays everybody.

The portals that pass audits quietly are the ones where nobody had to think about passing audits. That is the goal: make the right path the paved path.