Introduction to Accessibility Testing

Hello Readers,

Hope you are doing well.

The topic that we have picked up for today is an important one with regards to application testing.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 15% of the population has a disability, which is the reason Accessibility Testing has become important. Irrespective of howsoever technically efficient and advanced our applications become if this aspect of inclusivity is not taken care of we might still have a lot more to achieve perfection. We have people with all sorts of backgrounds, geographies, demographics, diverse profiles, and special needs. To make the products, apps, and websites friendly for everyone even for people with special needs is the prime objective of having accessibility testing.

To achieve this, we need special technologies in our products such as screen magnification software, screen readers, speech recognition software, special keyboards to work, and for communication and many more. Basically, we need to verify that our product is usable to anyone who needs to use it and we need to succeed in making that possible.

Various governments have now come up as mandate for digital products to be accessible for people with special needs and abilities.

We will broadly be discussing the key points, such as the basic idea, why it is important, and how to achieve it in congruence with the guidelines set by WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines). So far, we had been thinking of it as a choice but its no more a choice rather a legal right for everyone to have access to applications.

So we discussed what and why do we need this accessibility testing so far. Now we delve deeper as to what aspects are of our concern in accessibility testing. This testing comprises of testing the product usability keeping in mind the needs of people with visual, auditory, motor, neurological , physical, language cognitive, and speech impairments.

Web accessibility testing is a part of usability testing and we would like to give a special mention to the fact that they are not the same as believed by many.

Principles of WCAG

• Perceivable — The information and user interface elements should be presentable to the end-users in a way they can perceive. For Example, an alternate text for images.
• Operable — Ease of operability is a critical factor as people spend lot of time on these apps and websites. It is important that they are not strenuous even to people who are specially able. So, the screen size and magnification should not disrupt the comfort of the user. Also, a person must be able to access all the links even with a keyboard.
• Understandable — Our product should be easy to comprehend to users even with special needs, for instance, the information should be usable to people with vision or audio issues.
• Robust — A robust application will be one that is compatible with assistive technologies. This means that the app should support the newest browser versions and is compatible with different form factors.

Benefits of Web Accessibility Testing

Moreover, complying to the accessibility guidelines is not just beneficial for people with special needs but has few added advantages that we also enjoy such as:

• Reduced legal complications
• Potential Business Growth
• Accurate Search Results
• Better User Experience
• Improved Market Penetration

This aspect is also a soft aspect in this cut-throat competitive world as this effectively gives confidence and feel-good factor to a more inclusive world where everyone grows together, and we all hope to build a better world for everyone.

So far, we talked about the need and understanding of this idea. We will take this topic further and will talk about how we can actually achieve it in detail.

Till then, Take care. Value every day of this life.

Originally published at https://www.qekafe.com on September 29, 2020.