1.3 billion people in the world have a disability. Here’s why you, as a software service provider, should care: social responsibility, legal requirements, and untapped income potential. And it’s critical to consider when planning manual software testing.
Accessibility testing can help raise your social impact, regulatory compliance, and, as studies show, a 50% increase in performance. But for that, you’ll need specialists with proper testing expertise. For now, let’s get up to speed on what digital accessibility is and how you can secure it.
Let’s begin with the essentials. First, we need to understand what digital accessibility is. In a broader context, it means designing a website in a way that lets any user fully enjoy it. So, don’t think of accessibility as only for people with disabilities.
Always think of individuals who:
Each category has unique needs. And if your page accommodates them, it translates to broader reach and social responsibility.
Now, what exactly defines a page as accessible? Accessibility hinges on four core principles: perceivability, operability, understandability, and robustness. So, to be accessible, your product needs to be POUR:
To try to imagine how a disabled person may use a website is to get it wrong. When you want to compile scenarios that will help your team conduct thorough accessibility testing, you need three things:
Preparing for accessibility checks is rather individualized. You need to know your local laws, audiences, and the product. But try to be proactive and focus on the prevalent needs of people with disabilities. Start narrow and branch out from there.
Also, remember something that isn’t brought up often. A critical aspect of accessibility testing is that it’ll produce mediocre results with automated QA. If you want your site to be really inclusive, you need experts in manual software testing.
One of the best ways of ensuring accessibility is adhering to respective guidelines. Let’s overview the most widespread regulations you should get to know.
Even with extensive regulations, there’re still plenty of cases when companies fail to provide suitable experiences for their users.
In 2022 alone, the US has seen 2,387 accessibly related lawsuits. The one good thing that came out of all these cases was that each company improved its services to cater to differently-abled people. So, pay close attention to regulations and treat accessibility testing as essential.
A quick note – this web accessibility testing checklist is, of course, not complete. We’ve included the core aspects that must be secured to make most users as comfortable as possible. You may need to expand it, considering the website’s particularities.
Not all people rely on traditional mouse and keyboard inputs. Your page needs to support diverse navigation methods. Otherwise, users simply won’t be able to benefit from your services.
In this regard, accessible navigation means:
Many depend on screen readers for their daily routine. This software works by reading aloud the content of a website, including text, links, and other elements. Individuals then use their preferred navigation method to interact with the content. So, screen readers are closely tied to alternative navigation tools.
Thus, you need to:
Source: UX Planet
Focus states indicate which element is currently active or selected. Basically, users need them to perform actions on a page (scrolling, pressing buttons, etc.). And each such action must be easily grasped by a person, so:
It’s not always true that a picture is worth a thousand words. People with impaired vision will not gain much from a perfectly designed infographic, as screen readers won’t “read” a photo. Hence, you need to:
Source: Access Guide
Excessive or rapid motion can be disorienting for users with certain conditions, such as vestibular disorders and epilepsy. And for some, flashing or blinking elements may cause pain. To avoid user discomfort:
Source: audioeye
Color is often a part of brand identity. But ensuring sufficient contrast and avoiding certain hue combinations will help users with visual impairments. WCAG 2.0 states that for the highest level of accessibility compliance (AAA), the contrast ratio must be at least 7:1. So, aim for that and:
Source: GitHub
No matter how valuable your content may be to people, if they can’t read it, they won’t use it. Adjustable text is about comfort. So, you need to offer a degree of flexibility when it comes to text size, fonts, and colors.
Source: Marvel
Forms are common interaction points. Proper labeling and organization assist users with screen readers or cognitive impairments in understanding and completing forms. Don’t strive to achieve a very clean or minimalistic look, instead:
Source: W3C
Some users may not be able to access multimedia content. Providing textual alternatives to, say, videos is great for people who need them and for your SEO as well. And just a heads up – don’t trust auto-captioning too much.
Clear page titles and hierarchical headings assist all users in understanding a page’s structure and content. For example, people who use screen readers or have cognitive disabilities will be able to quickly grasp what the site is about or whether it has the needed data. Neat structures will also improve UX across devices.
Descriptive and clear links are not only a matter of good design. They are a fundamental aspect of digital accessibility. So, you want to make sure that each link on your page lets users know what to expect. And people who use ATs will have an easier time giving instructions to, for instance, a voice command tool.
A final point that we’d like to note is to not get hung up on digital accessibility as an advantage for business. Sure, you’ll get quite a few perks by making your webpage inclusive: better performance, reputation, risk mitigation, refined UX… But don’t forget that there are real people who you can make happy by implementing a few tweaks to your page.
Treat digital accessibility as something that makes our world better, and work with professionals who know what they are doing. QA Madness can help with that.
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