App Ops Desk · Issue #22

Accessibility smoke before you ship

You do not need a full a11y audit every release. You do need a boring smoke path that catches the regressions that block real people — and sometimes review.

Read time: 6 min Accessibility QA Pairs with Issues #6 and #10
One action this week: Add a 10-minute VoiceOver + largest text pass on the archive build for your core flow before external TF.

Minimum solo smoke

  1. VoiceOver: launch → primary action → settings (or account)
  2. Every critical control has a spoken name that matches intent
  3. Dynamic Type: largest accessibility sizes do not clip paywall/legal
  4. Reduce Motion: no required information only in a motion cue
  5. Color contrast on primary buttons still readable

Failure modes

  • Icon-only buttons with empty accessibility labels
  • Custom controls that trap VoiceOver focus
  • Paywall text truncated at large sizes
  • “Tap the bouncing arrow” as the only instruction

Release log line

A11y smoke (archive build ____):
VO core path: pass/fail
Largest text paywall/legal: pass/fail
Notes:

Bottom line

Accessibility smoke is release ops, not a side quest. Ten minutes on the archive build beats a week of “works for me.”

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