I once worked on a massive WooCommerce configurator project—custom components, dynamic price updates, the works. On paper, we were golden. We ran the automated lighthouse audits, checked the “aria-label” boxes, and felt like geniuses. Then we did some Accessible UX Research with a real user who relied on a screen reader. Total nightmare. They couldn’t even get past the first step because our “technically valid” DOM was a logical maze. Trust me on this: checking boxes isn’t the same as building for humans.
That experience changed how I look at development. Most of us devs are pragmatists; we want to build things that work and don’t come back to haunt us with bug reports. But when it comes to accessibility, we often treat it like a final coat of paint. We patch. We add a few labels. We move on. My first thought back then was just to throw more ARIA at the problem. Bad move. I ended up creating more noise for the user, not more clarity. The real fix wasn’t in the code yet; it was in the research phase we skipped.
Mastering Accessible UX Research To Stop The Patching Cycle
This is why the release of Michele A. Williams’ new book, Accessible UX Research, is such a big deal for our industry. It’s not just for designers. As a developer, understanding how to include users with diverse abilities in the testing phase saves you hours of refactoring “clever” code that turns out to be unusable. If you’ve ever felt the frustration of a broken accessibility workflow, this is your roadmap out of that mess.
Inclusive research helps you identify what I call “the developer’s bias”—assuming that because it works with a mouse and a 4k monitor, it works everywhere. According to UX Insight, involving diverse participants early prevents the massive technical debt that comes with retrofitting accessibility. It’s about building a culture of inclusion from the first line of code.
Here’s a practical example. Instead of guessing how a screen reader handles a complex menu, you can use a simple filter to ensure your navigation attributes are dynamic and context-aware. This is the kind of robust logic you start writing once you’ve actually seen a user struggle with a static “aria-label.”
/**
* Properly add accessibility attributes to navigation items.
*
* Instead of hardcoding, we use filters to ensure attributes
* are only present when they serve a functional purpose.
*/
function bbioon_add_a11y_nav_attributes( $atts, $item, $args ) {
// Check if the menu item has children (aria-haspopup)
if ( in_array( 'menu-item-has-children', $item->classes ) ) {
$atts['aria-haspopup'] = 'true';
$atts['aria-expanded'] = 'false';
}
// Ensure we don't have redundant labels that clutter screen readers
if ( ! empty( $item->description ) ) {
$atts['aria-describedby'] = 'bbioon-nav-desc-' . $item->ID;
}
return $atts;
}
add_filter( 'nav_menu_link_attributes', 'bbioon_add_a11y_nav_attributes', 10, 3 );The kicker is that these small technical shifts only happen when you understand the “why” behind the user’s experience. You can find more deep-dives into these methods in the CVS Health Inclusive Design Playbook, which mirrors many of the strategies Michele outlines in her book. It’s about moving beyond compliance and getting into real-world usability.
The Reality Check: Inclusion Is A Mindset
We need to stop viewing accessibility as a set of rules to satisfy a validator. It’s about people. Michele’s book covers everything from disability etiquette to facilitating sessions that actually work for everyone. If you’re a senior dev or a lead, you should be pushing your team to read this. It transforms the way you plan features, recruit for betas, and ultimately, how you ship products that don’t exclude a huge chunk of your potential market.
- Plan your research to include disabled participants from day one.
- Learn to use assistive technologies yourself—familiarity is the first step to empathy.
- Stop relying on automated tools; they only catch about 30% of actual barriers.
- Build trust within your team by making accessibility a core requirement, not a “nice to have.”
Look, this stuff gets complicated fast, especially with complex WooCommerce setups or custom SaaS dashboards. If you’re tired of debugging someone else’s mess and just want your site to be truly inclusive and functional, drop me a line. I’ve probably seen it before and solved it the right way.
Are you ready to move from checking boxes to actually understanding your users?
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