accessibility-debt-tracking

Track accessibility debt by documenting known issues with severity, affected users, WCAG criteria, location, discovered date, deferral reason, workaround, estimated effort, deadline, and owner. This structured record format enables teams to prioritize remediation and prevent backlog growth.

Accessibility debt consists of known accessibility issues that have been deferred during development. Governance is needed when issues accumulate faster than they are fixed, requiring triage rules for critical, major, and minor severities alongside escalation and regular debt reduction planning.

Triage WCAG compliance issues by applying governance rules that categorize severity as critical, major, or minor. Escalate based on severity levels and affected users, assigning owners with remediation deadlines to ensure ongoing progress and prevent backlog regression.

Integrate accessibility remediation tracking with audits and product reviews by documenting discovered issues with WCAG criteria and estimated fix effort. This ensures ongoing remediation across web and mobile applications while avoiding uncontrolled backlog growth.

Manage deferred accessibility issues by maintaining a structured backlog specifying issue description, severity, affected users, WCAG criteria, and workaround. Assign owners and remediation deadlines to ensure issues are systematically resolved across platforms.

Accessibility debt accumulates when known issues are deferred without structured tracking and governance. Without documented severity, WCAG criteria, owners, and remediation deadlines, teams lack the visibility needed to prioritize fixes and control backlog growth.