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Accessibility remediation across 21 publisher sites

A repeatable WCAG audit and fix workflow for a shared publishing platform.

Role: Front-end developer, accessibility lead

Screen reader demo of the Katina home page using NVDA (1 minute 17 seconds, with NVDA speech audio). A recording of the Katina home page with the NVDA screen reader running, so you can hear what a screen reader user hears. A dotted focus outline moves along the main navigation links and onto the lead story, the page scrolls to the stories below, and activating a story link opens that article.
Read the transcript

What NVDA says in the recording, copied from NVDA's Speech Viewer log, in the order it was spoken.

  1. This Digital Database Cracks Open Early Medieval Texts | Katina Magazine
  2. visited link Katina home - Librarianship Elevated
  3. Katina Magazine
  4. same page link Skip to main content
  5. banner landmark link Annual Reviews
  6. visited same page link Katina home - Librarianship Elevated
  7. visited link Login or register
  8. button Open Search
  9. link SIGN UP
  10. Main Site navigation landmark list with 6 items visited link RESOURCE ADVISOR
  11. visited link OPEN KNOWLEDGE
  12. link THE FUTURE OF WORK
  13. visited link ABOUT KATINA
  14. THE FUTURE OF WORK
  15. clickable banner landmark Annual Reviews link
  16. Katina home - Librarianship Elevated visited same page link
  17. Login or register visited link
  18. Open Search button Search
  19. SIGN UP link
  20. Main Site navigation landmark list with 6 items RESOURCE ADVISOR visited link
  21. OPEN KNOWLEDGE visited link
  22. THE FUTURE OF WORK link
  23. ABOUT KATINA visited link
  24. INSTITUTIONAL SUBSCRIPTIONS visited link
  25. ADVERTISING link
  26. main landmark clickable This Digital Database Cracks Open Early Medieval Texts visited link heading level 1
  27. Sofia Fagiolo link
  28. Open without paywalls through S2O. Secure your 2026 institutional subscription! LEARN MORE visited link
  29. Knowledge Comes at a Cost. What Are We Really Paying For? visited link heading level 2
  30. By link The Open Knowledge Editorial Committee
  31. In this Open Access Week reflection, Katina editors grapple with the costs of knowledge, invisible
  32. The Unacknowledged Costs of Knowledge visited link heading level 2
  33. The Unacknowledged Costs of Knowledge | Katina Magazine - Google Chrome region
  34. The Unacknowledged Costs of Knowledge | Katina Magazine - Google Chrome region
  35. The Unacknowledged Costs of Knowledge | Katina Magazine
The Annual Reviews home page just after the first Tab press. A boxed "Skip to content" link has appeared at the top left, above the logo, with a clear black outline. An arrow points to it.
Annual Reviews, live site. The "Skip to content" link appears on the first Tab press.

The problem

One platform powers many publisher sites, each with its own skin. Fixes made in one place drifted or never reached the others.

What I did

  1. Audited templates and shared JS against WCAG 2.2 AA and logged findings per instance.
  2. Replaced ad hoc dropdowns with the disclosure navigation pattern, with proper focus handling.
  3. Updated legacy markup and JavaScript to ensure there are no keyboard traps, no content that cannot be operated with a keyboard, and that everything interactive receives keyboard focus.
  4. Implemented template logic to keep the heading hierarchy correct on pages built from reused template fragments, so assistive technology users get a logical structure to navigate.
  5. Advised customers and stakeholders on colour contrast issues, where applicable.
  6. Made sure every site has a "Skip to content" link that appears on the first Tab press on a page, so keyboard users can jump past the header and navigation. Screen readers can override this behaviour, which is expected.
  7. Documented which instances inherit shared code and which keep their own fork.
  8. Tested every change with Lighthouse, SiteImprove, WAVE and axe-core, then manually with the keyboard and with the JAWS, NVDA and Windows Narrator screen readers.

The outcome

A tracked backlog of tickets, consistent keyboard behaviour, and a checklist new skins start from.

Training

W3Cx WAI0.1x: Introduction to Web Accessibility, verified certificate. Course by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative, passed with a verified certificate issued September 19, 2025.