Articles

What Challenges arise while Conducting Accessibility Testing?

by Riley Claire Senior Software Test Engineer

Web accessibility testing ensures disabled users can easily access a website or application. A fully accessible website can boost the business to some extent and reach a wider audience. This testing method makes sure that a website is not only accessible but also usable. Users shouldn’t be differentiated based on physical/mental/ location/ culture, or language. Through the strategic implementation of Web accessibility testing, web owners will not be in legal jeopardy, as making a website without including the accessibility features is considered to be an offense in certain countries. In this article, you will learn the challenges of conducting accessibility testing. 

What is accessibility testing?

It is a testing method that ensures a website or application is built according to the WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) standards. It ensures that a website or application being made is not only fully accessible but can also be used easily by the disabled community. Specific assistive technologies are incorporated to conduct accessibility testing activities reliably and judiciously.

Following are the challenges in conducting accessibility testing:

1. The issue with Heading: Disabled people with vision impairments hardly read an entire web page. For web page navigation, they use AT (Assistive Technologies). A screen reader is one such AT used by disabled people with vision impairments to access websites.

A majority of screen readers uses headings for website navigation. Hence, the heading hierarchy should be maintained logically (H1>H6) to ensure that users have no issues while navigating the website.

2. Contrast text is poor: Low-contrast text is one of the major accessibility issues that are being identified in many websites, and hence, web accessibility testing should be carried out methodically. The shapes and edges of several components will be intricate for users to identify because of the poor contrast of the site.

3. The Alt text is inappropriate: One of the common accessibility issues in web design is Alt text for images. According to research, there were missing alternative texts in approximately 31.3% of home page banners. Hence, this is a significant challenge from a web accessibility standpoint. Accordingly checking alt text should be an essential point covered in web accessibility testing.

4. Captions and Subtitles are added to videos: Using captions and subtitles for video clips is also one of the most common accessibility testing problems. Content creators need to make sure that the videos should be added with the appropriate subtitles and captions as it helps people with hearing impairment. Some form of a caption is required to access video content.

5. Inaccessible documents are embedded: Elements like documents that are hosted on the site are extended by accessibility issues. Digital products such as PDFs and other documents should be accessible for disabled users. There is a built-in accessibility checker for some of the programs.

6. Non-descriptive links are used: When links are included in any content, the text should be able to describe where the link will navigate to correctly. Screen readers can be easily guided to the specific web page links using assistive technology.

7. Problems with navigability and keyboard accessibility: Visually impaired users may find it challenging to use a trackpad or mouse to navigate to any website. For them, content can be accessed using assistive technologies such as a sip-and-puff device and voice-operated commands could be considered to be more accessible.

Conclusion: If you are looking forward to implementing accessibility testing for your organization, get connected with a premium software testing services company that will provide professional consultation and support in developing a crystal-clear accessibility testing strategy.


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About Riley Claire Advanced   Senior Software Test Engineer

33 connections, 1 recommendations, 113 honor points.
Joined APSense since, April 28th, 2022, From Vancouver, Canada.

Created on Sep 14th 2022 02:20. Viewed 304 times.

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