Replay AI for Creating Accessible UI With ARIA Compliance: step by step

TL;DR: Replay AI leverages video analysis to generate ARIA-compliant UI code, ensuring accessibility by understanding user behavior and intent, unlike traditional screenshot-to-code tools.

Building Accessible UIs with Replay AI: A Step-by-Step Guide to ARIA Compliance#

Accessibility is paramount in modern web development. Creating inclusive experiences requires more than just visually appealing designs; it demands adherence to accessibility standards like ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications). Traditional UI development often treats accessibility as an afterthought, leading to complex retrofitting. But what if you could build accessibility into the UI generation process from the start?

Replay AI offers a revolutionary approach. By analyzing video recordings of user interactions, Replay AI reconstructs working UI code while understanding user intent. This "Behavior-Driven Reconstruction" allows for the automatic generation of ARIA-compliant elements, reducing the burden on developers and ensuring a more inclusive user experience.

The Accessibility Challenge: Beyond Visual Design#

Creating accessible UIs is more than just adding

tags to images. It involves:

• •Ensuring keyboard navigability
• •Providing semantic structure for screen readers
• •Managing focus states
• •Adhering to WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines)

Traditional screenshot-to-code tools often fail to capture these nuances, resulting in inaccessible code that requires significant manual intervention. Replay AI addresses this by analyzing user behavior and intent directly from video, allowing it to generate code that inherently supports accessibility.

ARIA Compliance with Replay AI: A Practical Guide#

Let's walk through a step-by-step guide to generating ARIA-compliant UI code using Replay AI. We'll focus on a simple example: creating an accessible modal dialog.

Step 1: Recording User Interaction#

The first step is to record a video of the intended user interaction. This video should clearly demonstrate the desired behavior of the modal, including:

• •Opening the modal
• •Navigating within the modal using the keyboard
• •Closing the modal using both the close button and the Escape key

💡 Pro Tip: Ensure your video captures the entire screen, including the URL bar and any developer console activity. This provides Replay AI with maximum context.

Step 2: Uploading and Processing the Video with Replay#

Upload the recorded video to Replay AI. Replay's engine will analyze the video, identifying UI elements, user interactions, and the overall flow of the application. This process leverages Gemini's powerful video understanding capabilities to infer the underlying logic and purpose of each UI component.

Step 3: Examining the Generated Code#

Once Replay AI has processed the video, it will generate the corresponding UI code. Let's examine the code for our modal dialog, paying particular attention to the ARIA attributes.

typescript
// Generated by Replay AI
import React, { useState, useEffect, useRef } from 'react';

const Modal = ({ isOpen, onClose, children }) => {
  const [isModalOpen, setIsModalOpen] = useState(isOpen);
  const modalRef = useRef(null);

  useEffect(() => {
    setIsModalOpen(isOpen);
  }, [isOpen]);

  useEffect(() => {
    const handleKeyDown = (event) => {
      if (event.key === 'Escape' && isModalOpen) {
        onClose();
      }
    };

    window.addEventListener('keydown', handleKeyDown);

    return () => {
      window.removeEventListener('keydown', handleKeyDown);
    };
  }, [isModalOpen, onClose]);

  // Focus trapping logic
  useEffect(() => {
      const focusableElements = modalRef.current.querySelectorAll(
          'button, [href], input, select, textarea, [tabindex]:not([tabindex="-1"])'
      );

      const firstFocusableElement = focusableElements[0];
      const lastFocusableElement = focusableElements[focusableElements.length - 1];

      const handleTabKey = (e) => {
          if (e.key === 'Tab') {
              if (e.shiftKey) {
                  // Shift + Tab
                  if (document.activeElement === firstFocusableElement) {
                      e.preventDefault();
                      lastFocusableElement.focus();
                  }
              } else {
                  // Tab
                  if (document.activeElement === lastFocusableElement) {
                      e.preventDefault();
                      firstFocusableElement.focus();
                  }
              }
          }
      };

      modalRef.current.addEventListener('keydown', handleTabKey);

      return () => {
          modalRef.current.removeEventListener('keydown', handleTabKey);
      };
  }, [isModalOpen]);

  return (
    <div
      className={`modal ${isModalOpen ? 'open' : ''}`}
      role="dialog"
      aria-modal="true"
      aria-labelledby="modal-title"
      style={{
        display: isModalOpen ? 'block' : 'none',
        position: 'fixed',
        top: 0,
        left: 0,
        width: '100%',
        height: '100%',
        backgroundColor: 'rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5)',
        zIndex: 1000,
      }}
    >
      <div
        className="modal-content"
        ref={modalRef}
        style={{
          position: 'absolute',
          top: '50%',
          left: '50%',
          transform: 'translate(-50%, -50%)',
          backgroundColor: 'white',
          padding: '20px',
          borderRadius: '5px',
        }}
      >
        <h2 id="modal-title">Modal Title</h2>
        {children}
        <button onClick={onClose} aria-label="Close">Close</button>
      </div>
    </div>
  );
};

export default Modal;

Notice the following ARIA attributes:

• •
  text

  role="dialog"
  : Identifies the element as a dialog.
• •
  text

  aria-modal="true"
  : Indicates that the dialog is modal, preventing interaction with the underlying page.
• •
  text

  aria-labelledby="modal-title"
  : Associates the dialog with its title element, providing context for screen readers.
• •
  text

  aria-label="Close"
  : Provides a text label for the close button, which is crucial for screen reader users.

Additionally, the code includes:

• •Escape Key Handling: Closes the modal when the Escape key is pressed.
• •Focus Trapping: Ensures that focus remains within the modal while it is open, improving keyboard navigation.

Step 4: Customizing and Enhancing Accessibility#

While Replay AI generates a solid foundation for accessibility, you may need to customize the code to meet specific requirements. For example, you might want to add more detailed ARIA descriptions or implement custom keyboard shortcuts.

📝 Note: Always test your UI with assistive technologies like screen readers to ensure that it is fully accessible.

Step 5: Integrating with Supabase#

Replay AI seamlessly integrates with Supabase, allowing you to easily store and manage your generated UI components. This integration simplifies the development workflow and ensures that your accessible UI elements are readily available across your application.

The Power of Behavior-Driven Reconstruction#

The key advantage of Replay AI is its ability to understand user behavior. Unlike screenshot-to-code tools that simply convert visual elements into code, Replay AI analyzes the interactions within the video to infer the underlying logic and purpose of each UI component. This enables it to generate code that is not only visually accurate but also semantically meaningful and accessible.

For example, if the video shows a user navigating a menu using the keyboard, Replay AI will automatically generate code that supports keyboard navigation, including proper focus management and ARIA attributes.

⚠️ Warning: While Replay AI automates much of the accessibility process, it is still important to manually test and verify the generated code to ensure full compliance with accessibility standards.

Frequently Asked Questions#

Is Replay AI free to use?#

Replay AI offers a free tier with limited usage. Paid plans are available for higher usage and additional features.

How is Replay AI different from v0.dev?#

While both tools generate UI code, Replay AI uses video input and behavior analysis to understand user intent, leading to more accurate and accessible code. v0.dev primarily relies on text prompts and may not capture the nuances of user interaction as effectively. Replay also offers features like Supabase integration and product flow maps, providing a more comprehensive solution for UI development.

Can Replay AI generate code for different frameworks?#

Yes, Replay AI supports multiple frameworks, including React, Vue.js, and Angular. You can select your desired framework during the code generation process.

What types of videos can I use with Replay AI?#

Replay AI can process a variety of video formats, including MP4, MOV, and AVI. The video should clearly capture the entire screen and the user interactions with the UI.

Does Replay AI support multi-page applications?#

Yes, Replay AI supports multi-page application generation. It analyzes the video to understand the navigation flow between pages and generates the corresponding code for each page.

---

Ready to try behavior-driven code generation? Get started with Replay - transform any video into working code in seconds.