Accessibility testing evolved from a compliance exercise to a core component of user experience strategy. At some point, organizations began to understand that accessibility wasn’t just about avoiding lawsuits—it was about expanding market reach, improving usability for all customers, and fulfilling corporate social responsibility. But how did that happen? Let’s take a short view back to the past (and then, move to digital accessibility as we know it today).
In the early days of the Internet—when we used to write it with a capital letter—accessibility was rarely a consideration. Websites were built to manifest online presence and demonstrate the tech advancement. As time passed, brands started paying more attention to functionality and convenience. Next, visual appeal became the primary focus. And in most cases, users with disabilities weren’t taken into account.
It all started to change when the first iteration of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 1.0) emerged in 1999. Yet, its implementation remained sporadic and superficial for many years. Accessibility remained an afterthought for the majority—a box to check just before launch or, more commonly, after receiving complaints.
The landscape began to shift in the mid-2000s. Legal actions against major corporations highlighted the importance of digital accessibility. Landmark cases against Target (2006) and Netflix (2012) set precedents that would reshape how businesses approached their digital properties. And even after that, software accessibility testing remained largely reactive rather than proactive.
By 2010, mobile devices had dramatically altered the way we use software. Suddenly, developers needed to ensure applications worked across multiple screen sizes, input methods, and contexts. A smartphone becoming a gadget for everyday use created an opening for accessibility considerations.
It turned out that the principles of responsive design often aligned with the best practices of software accessibility. Teams began recognizing the parallels between designing for different devices and designing for different abilities. Though empathy and responsibility weren’t the primary factors shaping and enabling digital accessibility, they played an important role in establishing the right regulations.
We saw WCAG evolve through multiple iterations, with WCAG 2.0 becoming an ISO standard in 2012, followed by WCAG 2.1 in 2018. The UK, EU, USA, and a bunch of other countries and regions declared compliance with the set accessibility standards mandatory for all digital products and services. All existing websites and apps were given a few years to fully adapt their design and functionality.
Testing methodologies evolved in parallel. Early accessibility testing in software testing relied heavily on manual reviews against checklists. While effective, these approaches couldn’t scale with the explosive growth of digital content that constantly expands an initial accessibility testing checklist. Automated testing tools emerged to fill the gap.
Even though automation is not a substitute for manual testing and can only be effective for specific checks, it accelerates and facilitates the testing process. The most effective testing programs started to combine automated scanning with manual expert reviews.
Today’s accessibility testing went even further. Teams are gradually becoming able to incorporate artificial intelligence into their QA frameworks to identify patterns and predict issues earlier in development. Machine learning algorithms can now detect potential accessibility barriers in design mockups before a single line of code is written.
These advances have helped shift accessibility testing further left in the development lifecycle, reducing costs and improving outcomes.
Let’s start with the fundamentals of accessibility testing.
Accessibility is the degree to which a component or system can be used by people with the widest range of characteristics and capabilities to achieve a specified goal in a specified context of use.
Accessibility testing is an assessment of software that looks specifically into the availability and convenience of the digital product for different user groups.
Accessibility testing is guided by several important standards and regulations:
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines define four principles laying the foundation necessary for anyone to access and use Web content. For QA engineers, these principles are known as a single abbreviation—POUR:
These principles provide the framework for accessibility testing. They organize the guidelines and success criteria for comprehensive software quality assurance.
The purpose of accessibility testing is to identify the barriers that prevent people with disabilities from using digital products effectively. Some of the most common barriers are:
These are just a few examples that illustrate how easy it is to overlook the needs of your users. What’s more, the barriers will vary based on the tech stack. For example, a mobile app and a website accessibility testing checklist will have a lot of points in common, but they won’t be identical.
Identifying these barriers requires a combination of technical knowledge, attention to detail, and diverse testing methodologies.
Accessibility software testing doesn’t limit itself to manual or automated testing only. On the contrary, it’s often more effective when the QA strategy combines several methods and approaches—both in terms of technical resources and involvement. Understanding the unique strengths and limitations of each will help you achieve the right test coverage.
As the name suggests, manual testing services involve manual test execution. QA engineers methodically examine digital products against accessibility criteria. This includes, among other things:
The strength of manual testing lies in its ability to identify contextual issues and evaluate the actual user experience. That’s something software accessibility testing tools or AI won’t be able to handle in the near future (or ever, let’s be honest). However, manual testing can be time-consuming. The accuracy of the results may vary based on a specialist’s expertise. That’s why we don’t recommend leaving testing for the in-house team with no QA engineers in it.
Automated accessibility testing for software uses special tools (other software) to scan digital products for compliance with technical accessibility requirements. This approach offers several advantages:
Specialized tools can identify technical violations such as missing alt text, improper heading structures, and insufficient color contrast. However, automated testing has significant limitations. For example, it struggles with subjective assessments. The tools will tell if the alternative text is present or missing, but they cannot evaluate its appropriateness, the logical order of content, or the clarity of error messages.
Perhaps the most valuable form of accessibility testing involves people with disabilities using the product in real-world scenarios. This approach provides the most accurate insights, for instance:
User testing typically involves recruiting participants with various disabilities, defining representative tasks, observing participants as they complete these tasks, and collecting feedback about their experiences. This qualitative data helps prioritize fixes based on actual user impact rather than technical severity alone.
Meanwhile, it’s not easy to arrange, and it’s not a task for a QA company or team to handle. User testing requires specific expertise in UX research and involving the corresponding professionals. On the bright side, user testing is not obligatory. In most cases, an experienced QA engineer will account for 99% of scenarios.
Most effective accessibility testing programs combine multiple approaches. For example, start with automated scans to quickly identify obvious technical issues and patterns across the application. Continue with expert manual testing to find issues that automation misses and provide context around technical violations. Add user testing at the later stages if you have the budget for it to validate solutions and identify real-world usage barriers.
Many product teams still struggle with implementing effective accessibility testing. The reasons can be different:
There’s one more thing easy to overlook. Accessibility testing requires both technical knowledge and an empathetic understanding of diverse user needs. QA engineers, with their attention to detail and set into a mode to find the flaws, have the right mix of skills and a mindset to run effective accessibility assessments.
What are the best software accessibility testing services? They are those with professional QA engineers planning and running the tests. Specialized QA expertise brings transformative value, whether it’s in-house hiring or outsourced accessibility testing services.
Professional QA engineers are familiar with the testing methodologies, tools, and accessibility requirements. They have a general framework ready to adapt and apply to your product. More importantly, the niche knowledge helps them look into areas that the rest of the tech team is likely to ignore and find “unpredictable” hidden issues.
QA engineers don’t just identify issues. They write detailed reports, help you understand the context, prioritize the defects, and often help prevent problems in the future. In practical terms, it means fewer to no bugs in production, quicker turnaround times, and higher confidence in your software.
How to choose a reliable accessibility testing partner? It’s best to look into several aspects at once: testing capabilities, soft skills, business values, and complementary expertise. Here are a few criteria to pay attention to:
These are the core considerations, but feel free to add more points if something important to you is missing from this list.
We started this article by talking about the early days of accessibility testing. And it would be logical to conclude it looking ahead. Accessibility testing continues to evolve—just like software does. The emerging trends in technology are going to influence accessibility assessment as well. We might soon expect:
Make sure you have the right people on your team to keep up with both regulations and tech trends. For in a world where digital experiences increasingly define brand relationships, ensuring those experiences work for everyone isn’t just the right thing to do—it’s the smart business decision.
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