Accessibility Testing: Start Here

One in four people in the United States have a disability. Because of this, accessibility testing is a vital part of test automation. Whether you’re already performing automated accessibility testing or beginning to explore it, start here. 

Consider this your starter pack for accessibility testing. 

Read along or jump to the section that interests you most:

• What Is Accessibility Testing?
• What Is A11Y?
• Accessibility Compliance
• Types of Accessibility Compliance
• Automated Accessibility Testing
• Automated Accessibility Testing Tools
• Accessibility Test Use Cases
• Get Started With Test Automation

What Is Accessibility Testing?

Accessibility testing is the practice of making your web and mobile apps usable to 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.

Often, accessibility testing is not performed in the software development cycle due to a lack of automation, or lower priority.

Accessibility testing is just as important as any other function or performance of an app or website. To make accessibility testing more efficient and sustainable, you need to shift it left and automate it. 

What Is A11Y?

You might have seen the term "A11Y" floating around the Internet as a hashtag, comment, or in an article. A11Y is a numeronym for accessibility. The “11” stands for the 11 letters between “A” and “Y”. It refers to how accessible software is to all people, including those with disabilities or impairments. 

Accessibility Compliance

You need accessibility testing 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), you have plenty of regulations to meet. Failure to do so could result in fines of $75,000-$150,000.

Increase Accessibility Testing With Automation

Most accessibility tests are done manually or not at all. When accessibility testing is performed, it is usually not a part of the test cycle or outsourced to third parties. This leaves the risk of expensive fees and escaped defects.

Accessibility must be a part of development from the beginning. Like other types of testing, by shifting left, you can identify accessibility defects sooner when they are easier and less expensive to fix. 

Automated Accessibility Testing Tools

Perfecto makes it easy to leverage accessibility testing automation.

Perfecto has advanced support for Espresso, XCUITest, and Axe. Our support for these frameworks allows development teams to add security, flexibility, and robustness, with Perfecto’s cloud-based platform.

Accessibility Testing for Mobile Apps

Unlock the potential of automated accessibility testing for your native mobile apps with Perfecto. Perfecto is built on top of Appium, allowing you to add accessibility scenarios for both iOS and Android functional tests. 

Accessibility Testing for Web Apps

Axe and other web solutions, like Selenium, are seamlessly integrated with Perfecto to help you automate web accessibility testing.

Axe is the world’s most popular accessibility testing toolkit. It is built on the world’s most popular accessibility rules library. Axe is ideal for development teams testing their web or Android applications to help identify and resolve common accessibility issues.

Quantum BDD Integration 

Quantum is an open-source, cross-platform test automation framework. It lets diverse teams (SDETs and business testers) get started with test automation by supporting behavior-driven development (BDD).   

To help you make your applications more accessible, Perfecto offers integrations with mobile platform accessibility tools Accessibility Inspector (iOS) and Accessibility Scanner (Android). With these tools, teams can check the current screens of applications for accessibility issues.

Quantum can be a one-stop framework for teams using Selenium and Appium. Used with Perfecto, teams have a single low-code solution for test management, maintenance, and execution at scale.

Evinced & Perfecto

Evinced is an accessibility software company that goes beyond legacy analysis to provide accessibility automation to enterprise developers. Using advanced rulesets, computer vision, and AI algorithms, Evinced automatically detects and pinpoints accessibility problems and suggests fixes. Teams can leverage the Evinced Mobile Analyzer, Appium SDK, and Perfecto to accelerate their accessibility testing. 

Accessibility Testing Use Cases

You need to guarantee that your apps work with screen readers, speech recognition software, screen magnification, and more. 

You need to test:

• Labels — Used by assistive technologies, like VoiceOver or TalkBack.
• Text contrast — Ratio between text or images and background color.
• Hit area size — Areas 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.

Get Started With Test Automation Today

With Perfecto, you can automate a large number of accessibility tests for web and mobile, and reduce the overall time it takes to run them. In addition, Perfecto will generate an accessibility test report that can help your developers find and fix accessibility issues in advance. For teams that want to move faster on automated accessibility testing, Perfecto offers the following benefits:

Test Creation for Every Team with code, scriptless, commercial, and open-source frameworks. 

Test Execution at Scale in the cloud across real, virtual mobile devices, and desktop browsers. 

AI-Driven centralized test reporting and analytics. 

Accessibility is incredibly important, yet often overlooked in technology design, development, and testing. Partner with Perfecto and make accessibility testing an achievable priority.