Frontend Accessibility Essentials 🔥

This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Vishwark

Accessibility is more than ticking WCAG boxes or memorizing screen reader shortcuts. In real-world projects, it’s about how you solve problems, collaborate, and think inclusively.

That’s why accessibility interviews shouldn’t just be trivia sessions. Instead, the best questions invite candidates to explain their approach, share stories, and show practical awareness.

In this post, we’ll explore accessibility interview questions grouped into four categories: General, Technical, Design, and Content. Each category reveals something different about a candidate’s perspective and skills.

1. General Questions: Shaping the Accessibility Mindset

These questions focus on understanding accessibility at a broad level. They test awareness, philosophy, and empathy.

✅ Who benefits from accessibility?

Most people immediately think about users with disabilities—and they’re right. But the strongest answers expand this view:

• Permanent disabilities (blindness, deafness, mobility impairments)
• Temporary disabilities (broken arm, migraine, recovering from surgery)
• Situational limitations (sun glare on a phone, noisy coffee shop, holding a baby)
• Older adults experiencing natural changes in vision, hearing, or cognition
• Mobile users who benefit from responsive layouts
• SEO and performance improvements that come “for free”

💡 Example insight: Captions don’t just help deaf users—they help anyone watching in a noisy subway or learning a new language.

✅ Inclusive vs. Universal Design

• Universal design → Products usable by everyone without modification.
• Inclusive design → Intentionally designing for human diversity and edge cases.

Example: Curb cuts in sidewalks were designed for wheelchair users, but also help parents with strollers, travelers with luggage, and delivery workers.

Digital example: Dark mode benefits users with light sensitivity and those who simply prefer it.

✅ Skip Links

Skip links allow keyboard users to bypass repetitive navigation and jump directly to the main content.

• Typically the first focusable element
• Hidden until focused
• Saves time and frustration

🚨 Common mistake: Skip links without visible focus styles make them useless.

✅ WCAG Compliance (A, AA, AAA)

• A → Minimum requirements (baseline accessibility)
• AA → Practical standard (most laws reference this)
• AAA → Gold standard (ideal but not always realistic)

Example: AA requires text contrast of 4.5:1, while AAA raises it to 7:1.

👉 General takeaway: Look for answers that show accessibility benefits everyone, and that the candidate understands accessibility is about people, not just checklists.

2. Technical Questions: Building Accessible Experiences

Here we test how candidates think about implementation details—HTML, CSS, JavaScript, ARIA, and assistive technology behavior.

✅ Accessibility Tree

Browsers build an “accessibility tree” alongside the DOM. Screen readers rely on it.

• DOM = everything
• Accessibility tree = only what’s relevant (roles, states, labels)

💡 Developers should understand this to debug why a screen reader “says” something unexpected.

✅ rems/ems vs. px for font sizes

• px = fixed, ignores user preferences
• rems = relative to root font size (consistent scaling)
• ems = relative to parent (useful for component-level scaling)

📌 Accessibility benefit: Users with low vision often increase browser text size. With px, the design breaks; with rem/em, it adapts.

✅ Focus Trapping

Trapping focus inside components (like modals) ensures keyboard users don’t “tab out” accidentally.

• ✅ Needed in modals, dropdowns
• ❌ Problematic when implemented incorrectly (no way to escape, missing focus states)

Rule of thumb: Always allow Esc to close modals and return focus to the trigger.

✅ ARIA: The Double-Edged Sword

• First rule: Don’t use ARIA if HTML already solves it.
• ❌ Misuse: role="button" on a <button>
• ✅ Correct use: aria-expanded on a collapsible menu

💡 ARIA should enhance, not replace, semantic HTML.

✅ Alt Attributes for Images

• Logos → company name
• Decorative → alt=""
• Charts/complex → longer text alternatives or data tables

SVGs don’t accept alt → use <title> or aria-labelledby.

👉 Technical takeaway: A strong candidate understands how browsers and assistive tech work together, not just which attribute goes where.

3. Design Questions: Visual & Interaction Decisions

Accessibility is as much about design choices as it is about code.

✅ Color Contrast

• WCAG AA → 4.5:1 (normal), 3:1 (large)
• WCAG AAA → 7:1 (normal), 4.5:1 (large)

💡 High contrast helps low-vision users and someone reading their phone in bright sunlight.

Tools: WebAIM Contrast Checker, Stark plugin.

✅ Interactive States Beyond Hover

Don’t design buttons with only hover effects. You also need:

• Focus → for keyboard navigation
• Active → when being clicked
• Visited → for links
• Disabled → distinct but readable

📌 Keyboard users rely on visible focus indicators. Removing them = disaster.

✅ Hover-Revealed Content

Hover-only menus/tooltips fail for:

• Mobile users (no hover)
• Keyboard users (no mouse)
• Motor-impaired users (hover is unreliable)

💡 Solution: Support click/tap and keyboard interaction.

✅ Making Infographics Accessible

Infographics are tricky. Provide equivalent information:

• Short alt text (summary)
• Long description (hidden text or linked page)
• Tables with raw data where possible

👉 Design takeaway: Accessibility-friendly design = contrast, states, alternatives, and flexibility.

4. Content Questions: Accessibility Beyond Code

Accessibility also applies to presentations, documents, and media.

✅ Accessible Presentations

• High-contrast colors + large fonts (24pt+)
• Don’t rely on color alone
• Verbally describe visuals
• Share slides in advance
• Add captions/transcripts for video

✅ Accessible PDFs and Docs

Proper tagging is essential—without it, screen readers may read things in random order.

• Use heading styles, not just bold text
• Add alt text to images
• Ensure form fields are labeled
• Check reading order

✅ Social Media Accessibility

• Alt text for images
• Caption videos (don’t rely only on auto-captions)
• CamelCase hashtags (#InclusiveDesign)
• Avoid text-in-images (or add descriptions)
• Limit emoji use (screen readers read each one!)

👉 Content takeaway: Accessibility isn’t just a developer’s job—it’s a communication habit.

Wrapping Up

Accessibility interview questions aren’t about trivia—they’re about how candidates think, prioritize, and collaborate.

A strong accessibility-focused frontend developer:

• Sees accessibility as benefiting everyone
• Knows both technical implementation and design principles
• Advocates for accessibility even when it’s not a client priority
• Practices inclusive habits in code, docs, and media

⚡ If you’re preparing for a frontend interview, remember: Accessibility isn’t a checkbox—it’s a mindset.

This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Vishwark