One of the unique characteristics of digital accessibility is that organizations accomplish it in many ways. Regardless of how the process is defined, it is crucial that it is well-defined and that there is clear communication between all involved. Outlining how various situations may be handled during the initial creation of the process is also essential. Unforeseen issues can and do arise, and having a process to work through them simplifies the effort and limits frustration. This article will highlight areas where problems can occur and suggestions for avoiding them.
The Environment
The testing environment can often be one of the most challenging parts of the accessibility effort. Today, there is more emphasis on releasing code faster than ever. With the practice of making code alterations quickly and the increasingly complex nature of organizational, administrative, and legal processes, accessibility testing can be viewed as a less critical part of the process and be overlooked entirely. This inevitably leads to the release of products with serious accessibility issues. Ensuring that accessibility is represented in the process is critical to avoiding this outcome and saves resources by reducing the need for retroactive accessibility fixes.
Accessibility Testing Processes
The most effective approach to accessibility testing involves hands-on testing. This provides a true sense of what must be done from a compliance and user experience perspective. This is not to say that automated testing should not be performed. The benefits of manual testing cannot be realized if an organization focuses solely on automated scans. Manual testing allows a better understanding of the user experience and leads to an accessible product much more quickly than automated testing alone. When used correctly with manual testing, automated testing helps identify issues to achieve a usable product that conforms with current accessibility guidelines and provides an accessible user experience. Let’s define what manual and automated testing means.
Manual Testing
Manual Testing is navigating through and interacting with the content of an application’s screen or webpage and reporting issues from a compliance or user experience perspective. Often, bugs can be applied from both angles: compliance and user experience. Manual testing includes reviewing labeling and the association of controls and form fields, including captions and video transcripts. It also includes interacting with the screen or webpage using different modalities such as a keyboard, touchscreen, and mouse. Also, it is necessary to verify that common assistive technologies or other built-in accessibility features of the operating system work properly. Automated testing can also be incorporated into the manual testing process if the tester clearly understands the tool(s) being used and the limitations and caveats of those tools.
Automated Testing
Automated testing is the process of using scanners to detect accessibility issues. While this method can be helpful, especially for catching coding errors not found with manual testing, it is well known that these tools can miss critical and blocking accessibility issues, which are easily identified through proper manual testing. In addition, be careful of false positives. Often, scanners can find an overwhelming number of things that do not need to be addressed immediately, and it can take a lot of time to review those issues to confirm they are actual issues that need to be fixed. Manual testing aids in accurately identifying such issues and categorizing them correctly, which also saves time and resources.
Breaking Down Your Testing
A manageable approach is to focus on a specific aspect of accessibility during each development sprint or cycle. For example, in the first sprint, you can focus on labels, the associations of controls, and ensuring access through various input means. In the second sprint, the focus could be on captions and transcripts for video/audio content. The third sprint might involve verifying decorative images are coded as such and ensuring that those that convey meaning have an accurate text equivalent. The fourth sprint may focus on verifying proper contrast and that the color pallet can be adjusted for individuals with low vision using common assistive technologies. Breaking out accessibility into smaller manageable parts reduces the time required to test and compliments the development sprint. It also allows team members to understand better how the accessibility guidelines apply and simplifies the accessibility effort.
Communication
Establishing an open and well-used line of communication is crucial. Especially when updates are happening quickly. Designers, coders, and testers should all be involved, as working together is essential to the accessibility effort. Someone familiar with accessibility should also be part of the discussions and, ideally, be in one of the roles mentioned. This helps to avoid situations where changes are made without being communicated throughout the team, resulting in testers discovering these after the fact. An unstable environment paired with a lack of communication causes inaccuracies, wastes time, and hinders the accessibility effort. Proper communication is key to successfully incorporating accessibility into the product development life cycle.
Documenting Bugs
When filing an accessibility bug, a tester should include the following:
- Steps to reproduce so the developer can quickly demo the bug.
- Platforms like web browsers or mobile operating systems and the assistive technology where it was discovered.
- Impact, how it affects the user.
- The severity of the issue (blocks the user from accomplishing a task or just a conformance issue).
- Current Behavior
- Expected Behavior
Providing this information helps prioritize bugs and allows developers to remediate issues quickly and efficiently.
Finding the right balance
It is essential to make sound decisions about how the development and testing cycles will function and clearly communicate that process to all involved. A stable process is easier to achieve when it is well-defined and followed and clear communication occurs. The stability of the experience allows for effective accessibility development and alterations regardless of the frequency of changes.
Establishing an effective accessibility process can be a trial-and-error process. If something in that process is not working as expected, do not be afraid to adjust as needed. Just be sure to communicate and discuss the changes with everyone involved. In so doing, everyone can have a vested interest in the process. Clear and frequent communication can make all the difference, resulting in reduced costs and improved quality of work.
Communication Matters!
Until businesses and users can effectively communicate in a safe and open manner, digital accessibility will continue to fall behind the rapid advances in technology. As a business, clear communication both internally and externally is critical. It is equally so for users to confidently report issues and know they will be resolved. When it comes to accessibility, "The customer is always right" is truer than ever before. If you don't experience accessibility issues in your daily life, you will never know they exist. That is, unless you listen to the feedback of those who do.
If you are ready to be proactive and embed accessibility into your content development lifecycle for the benefit of your users, feel free to inquire about a baseline web accessibility audit and to find out how WebAlign can help guide your efforts.
About the Author
Greg Rogers was born with no helpful vision and uses assistive technologies like screen readers to accomplish personal, professional, and educational tasks. He has worked in various large and small organizations across several industries, such as telecommunications, hospitality, governance, and healthcare. He earned his CPACC (Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Competencies) in 2020 and has formally tested digital properties for compliance and user experience since 2017.
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