Did you know that even minor changes to your website or app can unintentionally create accessibility barriers for users? Accessibility issues often arise unexpectedly with updates, new features, or fixes affecting users with disabilities. Automated accessibility testing helps catch these issues early, ensuring that your digital product remains accessible to everyone.
However, as digital products grow in complexity, relying solely on manual accessibility testing becomes challenging. Manual testing alone is time-consuming and may not cover all accessibility standards across every update. Automation helps solve this by scanning for common accessibility issues efficiently and at scale, ensuring compliance with guidelines like WCAG, and improving user experience.
This guide covers the essentials of automated accessibility testing, from why it matters to the best practices for implementation. Let’s begin!
Understanding automated accessibility testing
Automated accessibility testing is the process of using software tools to assess how accessible a website or application is to users with disabilities. It involves running scripts or tools that check for common accessibility issues, like missing alternative text on images or insufficient color contrast. These tools scan through a webpage's code to identify potential barriers that may make content harder to understand or navigate for people with visual, auditory, or motor impairments.
Key elements evaluated by automated accessibility testing
These are elements that are tested by automated accessibility testing:
Page structure and navigation
- Detects issues with navigation menus and page layout.
- Checks for appropriate use of section headings and landmarks to support assistive technologies.
- Identifies page regions that need labeling for orientation and ease of use.
Readability and color contrast
- Assesses font size and line spacing to ensure text is legible.
- Verifies sufficient contrast between text and background colors for readability.
- Flags fonts with high character complexity that may hinder reading clarity.
Links and interactive elements
- Spots vague link phrases like "click here" and checks if links are easily identifiable when hovered or focused.
- Detects broken or empty links that could disrupt the user experience.
- Verifies the accessibility of buttons, ensuring they’re labeled, large enough to click, and functional.
Images and alt text
- Identifies images lacking alternative text, which is essential for screen readers.
- Ensures alt text descriptions are clear and not redundant.
- Checks that non-text elements like icons and emojis have meaningful labels.
PDF accessibility
- Ensures images in PDFs have alternative text.
- Checks if the reading order is logical for screen readers.
- Verifies interactive elements in PDFs, such as forms, are accessible.
Code quality
- Reviews HTML and CSS for accessibility issues, such as missing language attributes or parsing errors.
- Ensures proper tagging of elements to support screen readers and other assistive technologies.
What is the role of automation in accessibility testing?
Automation streamlines accessibility testing by handling repetitive and large-scale tasks, which ensures consistency and efficiency in identifying issues. Here are the key roles automation plays in accessibility testing:
- Speed: Automated tests can quickly scan through multiple pages or components, identifying issues in seconds, which saves time compared to manual testing.
- Consistency: Automation ensures that tests are applied uniformly across a website or application, reducing the risk of human error and overlooking accessibility gaps.
- Early detection: By running automated tests early in development, developers can catch and fix accessibility issues before they reach the final product, improving overall quality.
- Scalability: Automated tools can handle large applications or websites, performing extensive checks across hundreds of pages, which would be challenging to complete manually.
Why automated accessibility testing matters?
Automated accessibility testing is essential because it helps identify and fix barriers that could limit access for users with disabilities. It ensures that digital products meet accessibility standards, improving usability for everyone. Additionally, automated accessibility testing:
- Improves user experience: Automated testing makes websites and apps easier to navigate for all users, especially those with disabilities.
- Saves time and resources: Automated tools scan quickly, reducing the need for manual testing and lowering associated costs.
- Ensures compliance: Many regulations, like the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and WCAG guidelines, require accessibility; automated testing helps ensure compliance with these standards.
- Increases audience reach: Accessible websites are usable by a broader audience, including people who rely on assistive technologies.
- Reduces legal risks: Compliance with accessibility laws minimizes the risk of legal issues related to digital access barriers.
- Boosts brand reputation: Companies committed to accessibility demonstrate inclusivity, enhancing their public image and trust.
Challenges & limitations of automated accessibility testing
Automated accessibility testing faces specific challenges due to the complexity of accessibility requirements. While it can detect common issues like missing alt text or color contrast problems, it often struggles with context-sensitive aspects.
For example, it might confirm the presence of alt text but cannot determine if it accurately describes the image. Additionally, dynamic content like pop-ups or interactive elements often need manual review to ensure they work with assistive technologies.
Challenges:
- Detecting complex issues, like contextual accuracy of alt text
- Handling dynamic elements, such as pop-ups and interactive content
- Limited to covering basic accessibility errors
Despite its usefulness, automated accessibility testing has limitations. It typically covers around 60-70% of issues, leaving many complex aspects, like logical reading order or proper use of headings, to manual testing. Automated tools also lack the ability to evaluate the actual user experience, such as ease of navigation or intuitive layout.
Limitations:
- Misses about 30-40% of accessibility issues
- Cannot measure user experience, like layout intuitiveness
How to conduct effective automated accessibility testing
Effective automated accessibility testing involves using specialized tools to identify common accessibility issues while setting clear guidelines and workflows to maximize coverage. Automated testing can quickly pinpoint errors, but a structured approach is key to achieving meaningful results.
Set accessibility standards
Define the accessibility standards you aim to meet, such as WCAG 2.1, so the automated tests align with established guidelines.
- Determine your compliance level (A, AA, or AAA).
- Incorporate any additional regional or industry-specific standards.
Select automated testing tools
Choose reliable tools like Axe, Lighthouse, or WAVE that can scan your content for accessibility barriers, providing quick feedback on common issues.
- Choose tools compatible with your development environment for smooth integration.
- Test different tools on a sample page to ensure coverage of essential checks like contrast, alt text, and form labels.
Run initial scans
Perform initial automated scans across your site or application to identify basic errors, such as missing alt text, contrast issues, and improperly labeled form fields.
- Prioritize core pages for the first scans, like landing pages, product pages, and forms.
- Use scan results to create a list of accessibility issues by category (e.g., visual elements, interactive components).
Configure for dynamic content
If your site has interactive or dynamic elements, configure tests to handle them. Ensure tools are set to scan pop-ups, modals, and other interactive features where accessibility issues are often overlooked.
- Check settings to enable scanning of dynamic elements.
- Run test scenarios to confirm coverage of interactive features, like pop-up alerts or modal dialogs.
Review and prioritize findings
Analyze the results to identify the most critical issues first. Prioritize fixes that impact usability and accessibility, such as essential navigation components and main content.
- Create a list of prioritized issues to address immediately, like navigation and key form fields.
- Document findings and assign tasks for prompt remediation.
Schedule regular tests
Set up automated tests to run periodically or integrate them into your continuous integration (CI) pipeline to catch accessibility issues as they arise during development.
- Schedule tests at key development milestones, such as feature releases or updates.
- Enable alerts to notify your team of new accessibility issues identified in routine scans.
Future trends in automated accessibility testing
Future trends in automated accessibility testing will likely bring advancements in accuracy and depth. Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are expected to enhance these tools by allowing them to interpret context more effectively. For instance, AI could help tools evaluate whether alt text accurately describes images or assess logical reading order in complex layouts.
Another trend may involve integrating natural language processing (NLP). This technology could improve the way tools evaluate link text or button labels, ensuring they are clear and meaningful for all users. Additionally, future tools might simulate diverse user experiences, mimicking how individuals with different disabilities interact with digital content.
Automated vs. Manual accessibility testing
Automated and manual accessibility testing serve distinct purposes. Automated testing is efficient for scanning large amounts of code quickly. It identifies common issues like missing alt text and color contrast errors and provides consistency across pages. However, automated tools can’t detect complex issues or evaluate user experience.
On the other hand, manual accessibility testing allows testers to assess the user experience and catch issues that automation misses. It’s effective for checking complex elements like interactive forms and content flow. Manual testing ensures usability but is time-consuming and resource-intensive, which limits its scalability.
Pros & cons
Automated accessibility testing pros & cons:
✅ Fast, ideal for scanning large sites.
✅ Consistent and cost-effective for repetitive checks.
✅ Integrates well with development workflows for continuous testing.
❌ Limited in detecting complex or context-specific issues.
❌ Can’t assess user experience, such as logical content flow.
❌ Misses usability aspects that require human insight.
Manual accessibility testing pros & cons:
✅ Captures complex issues that automation can’t detect.
✅ Provides a real user perspective, ensuring usability.
✅ Effective for evaluating interactive elements and content flow.
❌ Time-intensive and costly, especially for large projects.
❌ Hard to scale for frequent or ongoing testing needs.
❌ Requires specialized expertise, which can add to costs.
Global App Testing's approach to accessibility
Global App Testing (GAT) provides a comprehensive approach to accessibility testing, ensuring that digital products are accessible to users with varying abilities and in line with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). Here’s a breakdown of how GAT handles accessibility testing:
1. Compliance with WCAG standards
- GAT’s accessibility testing aligns with WCAG standards, particularly at the AA level, helping businesses meet global accessibility guidelines. This is essential for inclusivity and compliance with regulatory requirements in regions like Europe.
2. Use of real devices and environments
- Testing is conducted on real devices across multiple environments, providing a realistic assessment of how accessible the product is. This approach reflects how actual users would interact with the software, ensuring accurate testing outcomes.
3. Detailed accessibility reports
- GAT provides detailed accessibility reports that show compliance status and highlight specific issues related to the WCAG framework. These reports give insight into the accessibility strengths and weaknesses of a product, helping businesses pinpoint areas needing improvement.
4. Simulating WCAG’s POUR framework
GAT evaluates products based on the WCAG POUR principles:
- Perceivability: Checks if content is perceivable for users with different visual needs, such as alternative text for images and sufficient color contrast.
- Operability: Assesses whether all users can perform necessary functions, including using keyboard-only navigation.
- Understandability: Ensures content is clear and predictable, avoiding complexity that may hinder usability.
- Robustness: Verifies that the product works with various assistive technologies, making it adaptable for future use.
5. Exploratory testing to identify accessibility barriers
- Exploratory testing helps identify hidden accessibility issues that might not surface in automated checks. By auditing for issues that impact users with disabilities, GAT ensures a thorough accessibility evaluation.
6. Comparative benchmarking
- GAT provides benchmarks that allow businesses to compare their accessibility standards against competitors. This helps identify areas for improvement and set accessibility goals.
Interested to learn more about our accessibility testing? Schedule a call with our specialist today!
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