In today’s digital age, ensuring that web applications and software platforms are accessible to all users, including those with disabilities, has become more critical than ever. However, given the sheer scale and complexity of modern applications, manual accessibility testing can be time-consuming and challenging to keep up to date. Enter automated testing tools—sophisticated solutions engineered to streamline the process of evaluating website and application features for accessibility issues.
Automated testing tools not only expedite the assessment process but also provide a level of comprehensiveness that might be difficult to achieve manually. They can scan through hundreds, if not thousands, of web pages in a fraction of the time it would take a human, identifying issues ranging from missing alt text on images to more complicated matters like navigation difficulties for screen readers. Stay tuned as we dive into the automated testing tools and explore cutting-edge techniques that are pushing the boundaries of what automated accessibility testing can achieve.
What Is Accessibility Testing?
Accessibility testing involves evaluating the functionality of applications to ensure that individuals of varying abilities can fully utilize them. This involves identifying potential challenges that differently-abled individuals might encounter when using the application without assistance. The goal of accessibility is to create software that is inclusive and accommodating to users with diverse abilities.
Can Accessibility Testing Be Automated With Tools?
Determining whether web accessibility testing can be automated doesn’t have a straightforward answer. While there are available automated tools, their reliability is not guaranteed, and they often require human intervention to be truly effective. Nevertheless, there are ways to automate web accessibility testing partially. For instance, you can employ a tool to conduct an initial scan of your website for potential accessibility issues and then rely on human testing to validate whether these identified issues are indeed problematic. Another approach is to use a tool to generate a report outlining accessibility concerns, which can then undergo manual review.
Ultimately, the decision regarding the automation of web accessibility testing boils down to a cost-benefit evaluation. Automated tools can save time and money, but they are not infallible. Hence, the optimal approach typically involves a blend of automated and manual testing methods for comprehensive accessibility testing.
Why Automated Accessibility Testing Is Important?
The increasing importance of digital technology and applications has led to more individuals utilizing digital tools. However, it’s important to note that approximately 70% of websites worldwide are not designed to be user-friendly for individuals with disabilities. On a global scale, governments are currently working to ensure web content is accessible to people with various impairments, as outlined in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0.
Consequently, as an organization, it is essential to consider the needs of these users, as well as the requirements of older adults, children, left-handed individuals, non-English speakers, and various other user demographics. Furthermore, it’s worth emphasizing that inaccessible websites can seriously harm a brand’s reputation. This underscores the importance of regularly examining your website for accessibility barriers using automated accessibility testing tools.
Tools To Automate Accessibility Testing
Here are some popular tools to automate accessibility testing:
Embrace LambdaTest as your go-to solution for conducting comprehensive accessibility tests on websites and web applications. This AI-powered test orchestration and execution platform presents a compelling array of 3000+ real device browsers and OS combinations, making it an indispensable asset in your testing toolkit.
● Conduct Real-Device Cloud Testing: Run online web accessibility tests on actual desktop browsers, devices, and a diverse range of operating systems. This ensures that your tests are conducted in real-world conditions, delivering accurate results.
● Integrate Seamlessly: Effortlessly integrate LambdaTest with many third-party tools such as Jira, Asana, Jenkins, Microsoft Teams, and more. This enhances collaboration and streamlines your testing workflow.
● Secure Local Testing: Ensure the security of your testing environment with the LambdaTest Tunnel. This feature enables you to perform local testing of websites with confidence.
● Geolocation and Localization Testing: Expand your testing scope with LambdaTest by conducting geolocation and localization testing in over 53 countries. This ensures your web applications are accessible and functional for a global audience.
Incorporating LambdaTest into your accessibility testing process not only enhances the quality of your web applications but also simplifies the testing process through its robust features and seamless integrations.
Additionally, to simplify your testing and debugging processes, you can explore the LambdaTest debug chrome extension. Plus, for testing digital content accessibility and visual recognition on both Windows and Mac systems, consider using NVDA (Non-Visual Desktop Access) and Screen Reader and Speech Viewer features during your testing sessions.
aXe: One of the most efficient and accurate accessibility tools available is aXe DevTools, which can help you achieve coverage of 80% or more for outstanding issues during the development process. Utilizing aXe DevTools can save you valuable time, money, and effort when conducting accessibility testing. This tool is seamlessly integrated into your development environment, appearing as a panel within your browser’s development tools, and is available as an extension for browsers like Chrome and Mozilla. You can assess an entire webpage or specific sections of it.
The tool categorizes any identified errors or issues by severity and provides code samples to simplify the troubleshooting process. aXe DevTools also stands out with its “Intelligent Guided Tests” feature, which allows you to detect more problems compared to other automated tools. Prior to querying the tester for results, this intelligent guided testing feature identifies the areas that need evaluation and handles as much of the complex work as possible.
JAWS: JAWS (Job Access With Speech), developed by Freedom Scientific, is an essential solution for individuals with visual impairments. It stands as the most widely utilized screen reader among those who have lost their sight. Some notable features of JAWS include the presence of two multi-lingual synthesizers, namely Eloquence and Vocalizer Expressive. This tool seamlessly integrates with popular software applications such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Microsoft Office. Furthermore, it offers support for touchscreen gestures on Windows devices.
JAWS facilitates rapid information retrieval and time-saving through its Skim Reading functionality. It also extends support for MathML content within Internet Explorer and incorporates an OCR (Optical Character Recognition) feature, enabling access to text and PDF documents. Additionally, JAWS allows Braille input via a Braille keyboard and includes drivers for connecting with Braille displays.
How To Automate Accessibility Testing?
Automating accessibility testing is an essential practice to ensure that digital platforms are inclusive and usable by everyone, including people with disabilities. Automating the process also helps to identify issues more eficiently compared to manual testing. Below are the key steps to automate accessibility testing:
Identifying Accessibility Standards: The first step in automating accessibility testing is to identify which accessibility standards you need to follow. These could be the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, Section 508, or other international standards. Knowing which guidelines to meet will help you set the parameters for your automated tests.
Selecting Automation Tools: The next step is choosing the tools that will help you automate your accessibility testing. Various tools are available, both open-source and commercial, like Axe, WAVE, or Tenon. Make sure the tool you select can test against the accessibility standards you’ve chosen to follow.
Setting Up The Testing Environment: Once the tool is selected, it must be integrated into the development and testing environment. This often involves installing plugins or libraries and configuring them to run automatically as part of your build process or as a step in your Continuous Integration (CI) pipeline.
Writing Test Scripts: For a more comprehensive test, custom test scripts often need to be written to simulate user interactions with the website or application. These scripts can trigger specific conditions or use cases that out-of-the-box testing tools might not automatically check. You can write these scripts using various programming languages depending on your tech stack and the selected tool.
Running Initial Tests: After setting up, run the initial set of tests to understand your starting point. This will give you an idea of how accessible your application is currently and what areas need improvement.
Analyzing Results And Creating Tickets: Post-testing, the tool will likely generate a report detailing the violations found. This needs to be analyzed critically to separate false positives from genuine issues. Once verified, tickets should be created for developers to resolve these issues.
Integration With Development Workflow: Ideally, accessibility tests should be part of your regular development workflow. Integrate the automated testing into your CI/CD pipeline so that tests are run automatically with every code change. This ensures that new accessibility issues are caught early in the development process.
Ongoing Maintenance And Updates: Accessibility is not a one-time task. As your website or application evolves, your accessibility tests must also be updated. New types of content or functionalities can introduce new accessibility issues, and the tools themselves are updated regularly to meet the ever-evolving standards.
Regular Manual Audits: It’s important to note that an automation testing tool is not a replacement for manual accessibility testing or user testing with people with disabilities. Automated tests can catch many issues, but not all. Manual audits should still be performed regularly to catch issues that automated tests might miss.
Challenges With Accessibility Testing: Techniques To Overcome
Even when applications are designed with the utmost precision and a focus on user-friendliness, there are instances where critical accessibility features may be overlooked. Accessibility poses challenges in scenarios where users must interact with applications without relying on a mouse or comprehend application content with cognitive impairments. Here are some of the difficulties that can arise in accessibility testing:
Accessibility For Users With Hearing Disabilities: Website accessibility challenges extend to users with hearing impairments, necessitating developers to ensure that any interactions involving sound are accessible to them.
Technique To Address The Challenge: Providing audio transcripts can make software accessible to users with hearing disabilities. Alternatively, incorporating sign language visuals can assist users with hearing impairments.
2. Accessibility For Users With Cognitive Disabilities: The primary challenge revolves around making web application content easily understandable for individuals with cognitive disabilities who may struggle to comprehend the application’s content.
Technique To Address The Challenge: Employing a design approach that delivers clear instructions using easily understandable symbols, as recommended by the W3C, can enhance accessibility for individuals with cognitive disabilities.
Accessibility For Users With Vision Disabilities: Ensuring accessibility for individuals with vision impairments demands careful consideration, as some users may be completely blind, experience color blindness, or have partial vision impairments. The goal is to enable access to the application’s information without relying on visual elements.
Technique To Address The Challenge: Implementing screen readers is an effective way to make software accessible to users with vision disabilities. Screen readers audibly convey the visual content of the application to users, enabling them to access information.
Conclusion
Accessibility testing automation has become an essential component of web and software development, ensuring that digital products are inclusive and usable by all. By implementing the right tools and techniques, developers and QA teams can streamline the testing process, identify accessibility issues early in development, and ultimately deliver a more inclusive user experience. As technology continues to advance, it’s imperative that we prioritize accessibility, making the digital world accessible to everyone.
