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Accessibility Review and Approval Best Practices for Low-Code Authoring Environments

Approvers and reviewers play a critical role in preventing inaccessible content from being published.

  1. Review Before Publishing

    Accessibility review should occur before publication, not after complaints or remediation requests. Before approving content:

    • Check the heading structure.
    • Verify link text.
    • Review alternative text.
    • Test keyboard navigation.
    • Confirm linked or uploaded document accessibility.
    • Verify captions, audio descriptions, or transcripts.
    • Review tables for proper structure.

  2. Use Automated and Manual Testing Together

    Automated testing tools, such as browser accessibility inspectors and CMS accessibility plugins, can help identify common accessibility issues but cannot detect all accessibility problems.

    Manual testing remains necessary for:

    • Keyboard accessibility.
    • Meaningful alternative text.
    • Logical reading order.
    • Link clarity.
    • Focus management.

    Automated testing should support, not replace, manual review.

    Automated testing, manual testing, and technical conformance testing can identify many accessibility issues. For critical services, high-impact workflows, or frequently used public-facing content, agencies may also benefit from usability testing with people with disabilities to identify barriers that may not be detected through conformance testing alone.

  3. Establish Governance and Standards

    Strong governance improves long-term accessibility outcomes. Governance helps maintain consistent accessibility across distributed publishing teams and reduces inconsistent accessibility outcomes across teams.

    Agencies should establish:

    • Approved component inventories.
    • Accessible design patterns.
    • Accessibility review checkpoints for content creation.
    • Accessibility review procedures for new components and integrations.
    • Accessibility review requirements for platform upgrades and major releases.
    • Regression testing procedures following significant platform changes.
    • Content publishing standards.
    • Accessibility criteria for approving reusable templates and workflows.
    • Author training requirements.
    • Accessibility escalation procedures.
    • Quality assurance surveillance plan procedures.
    • Periodic audits of high-traffic content.

Resources

Reviewed/Updated: July 2026

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