Write a design document for a shareable prototyping environment

Background

Accessibility bugs can take a long time to fix. This is often the case when the bug is with a particular screen reader + browser combination because engineers don't have access to these tools to test their fixes.

Proposal

To speed up a11y bug fixes, we'll create a tool which will serve code from an engineer's local machine into a shared space for rapid prototyping and iteration.

The idea here is that I, as an engineer, can make a fix for an a11y bug like the iOS form page header issue, but since I can't test it, I need the a11y specialist to step in. To share my local changes with the a11y specialist, I run a command to host the code in a temporary, publicly accessible place.

Other uses

There may be other times that having a throwaway environment for rapid iteration would be useful. Stakeholder demos, collaboration with design, etc. I'd be interested in hearing with VFS teams for feedback on other potential uses and whether this would solve some of the problems they face.

Why don't review instances work?

Iteration time

They take a long time to spin up. That doesn't happen until the end of the CI pipeline. The long feedback loop isn't conducive to rapid iterations and experimentation.

Scope

Review instances are intended to run the API in conjunction with the front end. This shared prototyping environment would run a mock API using the mocked responses set up for the app. This is to increase iteration speed and reduce outside variable for prototyping. For example, I want to test a very specific state:

User is logged in
With a certain flag in their profile
With form data pre-filled so I don't have to enter it by hand

Access

Review instances are tucked safely behind the TIC, and are thus inaccessible on the public internet. This means they can't be accessed via iPhone or another device that isn't set up for access.

department-of-veterans-affairs / va.gov-team