Testing for Accessibility

What is Digital Accessibility Testing?

Digital accessibility testing is the process of evaluating digital content—websites, software, documents—to ensure everyone, including people with disabilities, can use it. This testing ensures inclusive and accessible digital experiences.

There are two primary types of accessibility tests:

Technical Tests: These tests evaluate a digital property against established accessibility standards, such as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). Technical testers and developers perform these tests using specialized tools.
Functional Tests: These tests assess how a digital property performs for users with disabilities. Users with disabilities often conduct these tests, using their assistive technologies to verify usability and compatibility.

Why Use a Blended Testing Approach?

A blended strategy, combining both technical and functional tests, is crucial for effective accessibility testing.

Technical tests verify that foundational code meets accessibility standards.
Functional tests confirm that the actual user experience is accessible and usable for people with disabilities.

Employ both methods to achieve a comprehensive understanding of a digital property's accessibility.

Understanding Technical vs. Functional Requirements

To create and assess fully accessible digital products, they must meet both technical and functional requirements.

Technical Requirements: These focus on the underlying implementation. Test requirements are split between those that can be tested automatically and those requiring manual checks. The goal is a conformant technical implementation that is coded properly following the WCAG standards.
- Tools for Technical Tests: Use automated web page checkers, web browser developer toolbars (e.g., AMP Toolbar for Firefox), color contrast checkers, accessibility API inspection tools (e.g., Inspect), and your keyboard.

Functional Requirements: These ensure a system is available to and usable by people with disabilities. Verify that accessibility techniques are supported and that everyone can use the item.
- Tools for Functional Tests: Utilize screen readers, screen magnifiers, speech recognition software, and operating system accessibility features (e.g., High Contrast, Large Text).

Implementing a Testing Strategy

It is critical to build in accessibility requirements and test them as part of your development or procurement process, and not leave it to be assessed just prior to launch. Not only does this add pressure to the team or person(s) testing, but it also adds other costs of exclusion.

Select and Use Automated Tools for Testing

Automated tools evaluate a digital content item's code and content, identify accessibility issues, and provide guidance for fixes. These tools save time and catch errors that may not be immediately obvious.

Rice-Licensed Tool: Level Access Use Level Access to break down web accessibility issues into manageable tasks, track compliance progress, and receive recommendations.
- Contact the Digital Accessibility team to check if your website is currently in the Level Access platform, and their tools and services can be made available to you.

Free Automated Tools: Numerous helpful accessibility tools are available. We recommend evaluating websites with the following:
- Web Accessibility Developer Toolbars: Inspect code, check color contrast, and simulate different screen sizes using built-in browser tools.
  - WAVE Accessibility Evaluation Tool by WebAIM, available for Chrome, Firefox, and Microsoft Edge.
  - Accessibility Insights for Web by Microsoft, an extension that includes some automated checks, visualizes Tab stops, provides a guide for manual assessments, and can save a report.
  - ANDI (Accessible Name & Description Inspector) a "favelet" or "bookmarklet," not an extension, that will provide automated detection of accessibility issues, reveal what a screen reader should say for interactive elements, and give practical suggestions.
  - Web Developer by Chris Pederick provides quick access to assess document outline, heading structure, and others.
- Color Contrast Checkers: Ensure sufficient contrast between text and background colors for readability.
  - Colour Contrast Analyser by The Paciello Group, a separate application that can select colors using an eyedropper tool.
  - Contrast Checker by WebAIM, includes lightness sliders to adjust the colors to ones with sufficient contrast.
- Document Accessibility Checkers: Run an automated test against WCAG criteria to highlight issues that do not meet conformance.
  - PAC PDF Accessibility Checker checks against WCAG and PDF/UA standards to ensure accessibility and usability.
  - Adobe Acrobat Pro in this upgraded paid version of Acrobat, run the accessibility checker to highlight issues and use the features to fix PDF issues. Rice faculty and staff can download Adobe Acrobat Pro for free through the Adobe Creative Cloud license request.
  - Use the built-in accessibility checkers in Microsoft products.
  - Visit the Documents page for more information on creating accessible documents.

Manual Testing Methods

Automated tools cannot catch every error, as they do not understand context or evaluate content quality. After an initial pass with automated tools, you must perform manual testing to ensure your website is inclusive and accessible.

Content Review

Read your content with accessibility best practices in mind. Focus on clear language, logical headings, and appropriate alternative text for images.

Readability: Review your content for clarity. Use plain language and spell out acronyms on their first use. Avoid jargon.
Headings: Check that page titles are unique, descriptive, and marked as <h1> (one per page). Ensure all visual headings are useful, descriptive, and in hierarchical order (<h2>, <h3>, etc.). Look for any skipped levels (e.g., <h2> directly to <h4>).
Link Text: Avoid generic link text like "read more" or "click here." Make link text descriptive.
Visual Checks (Zoom to 200%) Zoom in on your page (Ctrl + for PCs, Command + for Macs) and check:
- Layout: Does all content remain visible and in a logical order? Does anything overlap or appear too far apart?
- Navigation: Do menus switch to a mobile-style format? Can you easily navigate and close these menus?
- Scrolling: Do you have to scroll horizontally to read everything? Is any content cut off?
- Functionality: Do all links, buttons, forms, and menus still work correctly when zoomed in
Images
- Alt Text: Ensure all non-decorative images have succinct, accurate, and useful alternative ("alt") text that describes their content and function.
- Text in Images: Check for images that contain text. Confirm that this text is also present in the body content or in the alt text. Try to highlight the text with your cursor to test this.
Color
- Contrast: Verify that the text and background color contrast ratio is at least 4.5:1.
- Meaning: Do not use color as the only way to convey meaning or information.
Forms
- Labels: Confirm that all form controls have descriptive labels. If a label isn't visible, check for a hidden <label>, aria-label, or title attribute.
Tables
- Purpose: Ensure tables are used only for tabular data, not for page layout.
- Structure: For data tables, confirm they have a table caption and clear row and/or column headers.
Videos
- Captions: Text version of speech and non-speech audio information needed to understand content for Deaf and hard-of-hearing.
- Automatic captions are not sufficient; they must be checked and edited to reflect accurate spelling and grammar.
- Transcripts: Descriptive transcripts for Deaf and Deaf blind people are essential. Must include a text version of speech and non-speech audio information and accurately describes visual information needed to understand the content.

Test using a Keyboard

Verify that all interactive elements (links, buttons, forms, navigation menus) operate solely with a keyboard (Tab, Shift+Tab, Enter, Spacebar, arrow keys). This is critical for users who cannot use a mouse.

Keyboard Accessibility: How to and guidance from WebAIM.

Test using a Screen Reader

Test with a screen reader to uncover issues related to reading order, heading structure, and how interactive elements are announced. This provides insight into the experience of users with visual impairments. The three main screen readers that are used by assistive technology users are: JAWS (paid license required), NVDA (free), VoiceOver (Mac OS). It is valuable to test using a variety of screen readers, as each one works differently with content.

Using NVDA to Evaluate Web Accessibility: How to and guidance from WebAIM.
Using VoiceOver to Evaluate Web Accessibility: How to and guidance from WebAIM.

Mobile Testing

Mobile accessibility testing is an essential step. Many people access digital content on smartphones and tablets. TalkBack (Android) and VoiceOver (iPhone) are built-in screen readers that read page content aloud. Use the following guidance for comprehensive mobile accessibility testing:

Test Android TalkBack: Learn how to use the TalkBack screen reader on Android devices to understand content navigation and presentation.
Test with iPhone (VoiceOver): Practice using VoiceOver on iPhones to experience how users with visual impairments interact with and hear content.

Support from the Rice Digital Accessibility Team

The Rice Digital Accessibility team can support content creators, designers, developers, and others procuring technologies in determining the best strategy to complete accessibility testing and help answer questions about results or potential fixes.

More Resources

Testing Web Content for Accessibility WebAIM
Testing with Screen Readers WebAIM
WCAG 2 Checklist WebAIM