Building for accessibility is mostly a set of defaults, not a phase. A team that uses real HTML elements, keeps a conformant component library, runs a scanner in CI and keyboard-tests before merge produces sites that pass audits without ever having had an accessibility project. This page is those defaults, plus what an accessibility management platform actually adds once a site is live and changing every week.
Accessible software starts with boring markup
Buttons that are buttons, links that are links, labels associated with inputs, headings in order, landmarks around the regions. Everything else is exception handling. Most of the ARIA in a typical codebase exists to describe a div that should have been a button, and removing it while fixing the element is usually a net deletion of code.
Put the checks where the work happens
A scanner in the pipeline on the templates, keyboard testing in the definition of done, alt text required in the CMS, contrast checked in the design tool. Four small gates, each cheap, that between them stop the 401 issues on the worked example from ever accumulating again once they are cleared.
What an accessibility management platform adds
Once the site is live and changing, the useful thing is not another scanner but a register: which issues are open against which template and which criterion, what the last audit found, what the retest closed, and what the published statement currently claims. That is the record procurement, legal and your own developers all need, and it is what this product keeps.
Questions people ask about ada web development
Do we need a platform, or a spreadsheet?
A spreadsheet works until two people edit it. What matters is that the retest closes the same list the audit opened.
Should accessibility be a sprint or a habit?
A sprint to clear the backlog, then a habit to keep it clear. Programmes that are only sprints regrow.
Where do web accessibility resources live for a team?
In the component library and the definition of done, not in a wiki page nobody opens.