Accessibility testing is the practice of making your web and mobile apps used by as many people as possible. It makes apps accessible to those with disabilities, such as vision impairment, hearing disabilities, and other physical or cognitive conditions.
Need for Accessibility Testing Accessibility testing is required to meet the needs of all users. It’s also the law. Between the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), Section 508, and the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA), there are plenty of regulations to meet. Failure to do so could result in fines of $75,000-$150,000.
Accessibility Support Disability types include Vision Disability, Physical Disability, Cognitive Disability, Literacy Disability, and Hearing Disability, to name a few.
Use Cases on Accessibility Testing Ensure all your apps work with screen readers, speech recognition software, screen magnification, and more.
Accessibility Testing Benefits include an Increase in website usage and market share, Enhancing brand image, and Making the website accessible to society.
Accessibility Test Guidelines Whether the testing is automated or manual, it is important to check for compliance with specific accessibility testing guidelines. There are several standards for accessibility, such as W3C’s WCAG 1.0/WCAG 2.0, BITV 1.0, Section 508 & Stanca Act, etc., out of which Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 ARE ACCEPTED WORLDWIDE. These standards provide details and standards on how to make a website or application accessible. An application or website having the right knowledge of these standards and abiding by these standards has a high rate of being successful in the market.
Accessibility Testing includes
· Labels used by assistive technologies, like voice-over or talk back
· Text contrast ratio between text or images and background colour.
· Hit area size area designated for user interaction.
· View hierarchy of UI determines how easy the android app is to navigate.
· Dynamic font size option for users to increase the font size to fit their needs.
Web Accessibility Testing Accessibility test of a website, product or application usually involves an extensive manual examination of individual pages, along with testing individual functions like product searches and online form submissions. Accessibility can be achieved using both manual and automated testing of specific elements of digital technology.
Overview of Accessibility Testing Guidelines Whether the testing is automated or manual, it is important to check for compliance with specific accessibility testing guidelines. There are several standards for accessibility, such as W3C’s WCAG 1.0/WCAG 2.0, BITV 1.0, Section 508 & Stanca Act, etc., out of which Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 ARE ACCEPTED WORLDWIDE. These standards provide details and standards on how to make a website or application accessible. An application or website having the right knowledge of these standards and abiding by these standards has a high rate of being successful in the market.
Tools
Automated Accessibility Testing Tool This tool helps to provide accessibility API and custom web applications for HTML Code Sniffer. This tool helps in many functionalities, such as in the creation of reports to evaluate reports, automatically validating single web pages, etc. It is an open-source tool and supports various HTML and image formats.
Web Accessibility Checker This tool is popularly known for providing the easiest ways to perform accessibility checks over the web applications of ASP.NET. This tool is easily customisable and supports different international accessibility standards.
Apple’s Accessibility testing tool This tool is specifically designed to test iOS apps. The usage of this tool will effectively help to improve the testing practice and benefits to improve user experience.
Google’s Accessibility Test Framework for Android This tool helps to detect a number of issues related to web accessibility tests. This tool uses the already existing Android UI and integrates with frameworks and other tools.
Colour Contrast Analyser This tool helps to check the issues related to text colour contrast on web pages. Also, this tool provides the functionality to analyse either a portion or complete the contents of a web page.
DOM Inspector, This is an add-on for the Mozilla Firefox browser. This helps to find the area or the section where the DOM can easily help to perform an accessibility check.
AChecker This is an open-source tool that is designed for web accessibility evaluation. In this tool, one can easily evaluate web accessibility by uploading the HTML file or entering the URL. Also, this tool provides several accessibility guidelines to choose from, such as the Stanca Act, BITV 1.0, WCAG 2.0, Section 508, WCAG 1.0, and HTML Validator.
Pa11y This a popular tool that is focused on helping the developer who is working on the accessibility test process. This tool enables us to set up our own suite of accessibility tests, which includes a dashboard, command-line interface, and a web service that helps to schedule tests for several URLs.
Dyno mapper This is a visual sitemap generator with four types – Circle, Default, Folder, and Tree. This tool helps to evaluate the website’s HTML content and create the sitemap from a URL. Also, it imports XML files for generating a sitemap and provides content inventory and audits files, images, etc.
Tenon This tool is well known as a web accessibility tool because of its flexibility, accuracy, and quality results. The tool uses API and gets integrated into the already existing toolset. The tool is effective in creating evaluation reports that are generated in HTML, CSV, XML, and JSON.
Challenges addressed through accessibility testing
Vision Disability, The method of accessibility testing, helps to overcome the challenge of complete blindness, colour blindness, or poor eyesight.
Hearing Disability The web accessibility test practice helps to overcome the challenge of auditory problems such as deafness, hearing impairments, difficulty hearing well, etc.
Literacy Disability The testing practice helps to overcome the challenge of finding words, reading problems, etc.
Physical Disability This method helps to overcome the difficulty of using a mouse and keyboard.
The cognitive Disability Accessibility test process helps to overcome the challenge of poor memory and learning difficulties.
Conclusion Making Accessibility Tests a regular part of the software testing process and implementing the necessary checks early and often can help improve the overall experience of using an application or website. As the world is moving towards improving the customer experience, it is important that an application is tested for its accessibility.
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