Front-End Developer Interviews: The Crucial Aspect of Accessibility

What you should know about Accessibility.

UpdatedAugust 9, 2025

Front-End Developer Interviews: The Crucial Aspect of Accessibility

I am Nandan, And you probably know me as a "Software Engineer who "hacked" an Airline to retrieve his luggage".

I am a full-time Software Engineer, Tech Speaker, and mentor. I enjoy talking about Web Development, Machine Learning, Natural language Processing, Machine learning Accelerated Mobile Pages, Progressive Web Apps, Cybersecurity, Chatbots, etc.

My claim to fame was when I posted a series of tweets on Twitter about data privacy issues on an airline’s website and the tweet got viral for all the good reasons. The story was covered by all major media portals all around the world including BBC, Saudi Gazette, Times of India, Boing Boing, Lallantop etc. and I have been interviewed by some major radio channels and podcasts.

In my free time, I like to indulge myself in activities like Photography, Gardening, Snooker, or Boxing. I am a proud owner of many plants, I sometimes talk to them (mostly pep talks).

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Front End - HTML, CSS & Javascript

Part 8 of 10

In this series, I will write about Front End Technologies, Including mini notes of my learning along the way. Follow to keep updated.

Up next

HTML Pitfalls and Gotchas Every Developer Should Avoid

HTML is Easy, May be Not.

What is Accessibility

Accessibility is ensuring that your web application is usable by people with disabilities, including people with

Visual impairment (Blindness, Colour Blindness) -
Hearing loss
Motor Impairment ( Difficulty using the mouse)
Cognitive limitation (Dyslexia, Attention Disorder)

Accessibility Core Principle (POUR)

Principle	Description
Perceivable	Content must be perceivable by all (e.g., alt text, captions)
Operable	All functionality must work via keyboard or assistive devices
Understandable	Content should be readable and predictable
Robust	Must work with various assistive technologies

How can people with disabilities use the applications

Visual impairment	Should be able to use with screen readers, VoiceOver, and Font Scaling support
Hearing loss	Close Captions for Video and Audio
Motor Impairment	Keyboard Accessibility Support
Cognitive limitation	Simple Language

Accessibility Standards

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)

Defines Accessibility levels as A, AA & AAA

Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA)

Adds accessibility support to non-semantic elements.

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)

Legal mandate in the US for accessible digital content

How to make a web application Accessible

Use Semantic Tags

Use tags like <button> , <nav>, <header>, <section> etc.
Avoid using div and span all over your application

Support Keyboard Accessibility

Actions should be usable via. keyboard, including opening modals, dropdowns, and toasts.
Use tabindex to align focus correctly.
Use focus, keydown event listeners correctly

Use Aria Roles when needed

Use aria-label, aria-hidden, role="dialog", etc., when native semantics are not sufficient
https://w3c.github.io/aria/

Focus Management

Trap focus in modals
Restore focus when modals close
Visibly indicate focus using focus-visible or outline

Maintain Colour Contrast

4.5: 1 for normal text in AA Standard
7:2 for AAA
Check contrast: https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/

Using Images and Other Media

Use alt text for images
Add transcripts/captions for videos/audio
Avoid autoplaying media files. i.e. Video

Tools for Accessibility Testing

The tools listed below are some of the most common tools for testing accessibility in a web application.

Tool	Use Case
axe DevTools	Chrome extension to audit a11y
Lighthouse	Built-in browser audits
NVDA / VoiceOver	Screen reader testing
Tab key	Test keyboard navigation

WCAG AAA is harder to implement, and most website are expected to maintain AA compliant.

I hope by the end of this post, you have a good idea of why accessibility is important and how you can add accessibility support to your application.

That’s all, folks! I hope you found this helpful. If you enjoyed this, check out more articles on my Blog, https://blog.nandan.dev/

Feel free to comment, email me at connect@nandan.dev, or connect with me on Twitter, Instagram, or GitHub. Don’t forget to subscribe to my newsletter for regular updates on JavaScript topics!

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Front-End Developer Interviews: The Crucial Aspect of Accessibility

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What is Accessibility

Accessibility Core Principle (POUR)

How can people with disabilities use the applications

Accessibility Standards

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)

Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA)

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)

How to make a web application Accessible

Use Semantic Tags

Support Keyboard Accessibility

Use Aria Roles when needed

Focus Management

Maintain Colour Contrast

Using Images and Other Media

Tools for Accessibility Testing

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Front End - HTML, CSS & Javascript

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More from this blog

What is Accessibility

Accessibility Core Principle (POUR)

How can people with disabilities use the applications

Accessibility Standards

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)

Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA)

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)

How to make a web application Accessible

Use Semantic Tags

Support Keyboard Accessibility

Use Aria Roles when needed

Focus Management

Maintain Colour Contrast

Using Images and Other Media

Tools for Accessibility Testing