Manual vs Automated Accessibility Testing
As the name suggests, accessibility testing means testing the accessibility of any website or mobile app by the largest user base possible. Accessibility testing helps to verify that apps/websites are accessible to those people who have disabilities including hearing, vision, motor impairments and other cognitive conditions.
Automated accessibility testing
In automated accessibility testing, an automated tool assesses your website to help you uncover any errors, bugs and missing accessibility requirements. There are a variety of automated accessibility testing tools that help you in detecting the accessibility errors present in your website or mobile app.
These automated accessibility testing tools check your website against globally recognised accessibility standards such as Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). Anytime you undertake automated accessibility testing on your website or mobile app, it scans through your web pages and provides you with a rating.
It enables a deeper understanding of your website's adherence to the WCAG, ADA or Section 508 standards. It does this by providing a detailed report showing which pages of your website contain violations against the standards. Let’s consider a few major benefits of automated accessibility testing:
Speed: Automated accessibility testing is always faster than manual accessibility testing.
Re-usability: Automated accessibility tests help to ensure that consistent accessibility testing is not a one off exercise
Immediate results: Automated accessibility testing results are quickly output and available on a real-time basis for all testing stakeholders.
Manual accessibility testing
Besides automated accessibility testing, manual testing for accessibility compliance will also be required. In manual accessibility testing, a real user analyses the user experience of your website or mobile app. This kind of testing is most effective when conducted by real people with a variety of real disabilities.
The people testing your website or mobile app manually, will make a determination as to how accessible it is for people with disabilities in strict accordance with the main accessibility standards.
In comparison to automated testing where the accessibility software testing tool plays a vital role, in manual testing, humans can often provide more comprehensive feedback that helps with the design and creation of more innovative applications. Let’s look into a few unique benefits of manual accessibility testing:
User perspective: There are certain errors that even testing tools can’t recognise that only a pair of human eyes can spot, like issues in workflows and design, fonts, sizes, and more.
Flexibility & Heuristics: In manual accessibility testing, testers have the liberty to employ their own creativity and question things that were not pre-scripted.
Adaptability: In manual accessibility testing, manual testers can check new features or any changes in workflows at any time.
Manual accessibility testing will have some disadvantages such as the outcomes being subject to each individual’s own personal experience. This can lead to inconsistencies in results. There is the chance of human error which you must consider and it also takes much longer than automated accessibility testing for the same amount of test coverage.
Each approach has its own strengths and limitations. Typically, the most effective strategy involves a balanced combination of both. Automated testing offers a swift and thorough initial sweep, while manual testing excels at exploring intricate issues and delivering context-sensitive insights. Below is a table outlining the differences between manual and automated accessibility testing.
| Factors | Manual Accessibility Testing | Automated Accessibility Testing |
|---|---|---|
| Time | Can be time-consuming as each element needs to be manually tested | Saves time as it can quickly scan the entire site for accessibility issues |
| Coverage | Can cover more areas as testers can identify issues that automated tools may miss | Limited coverage as automated tools only scan for known issues |
| Expertise | Requires trained testers with knowledge of accessibility guidelines | Can be used by individuals with limited knowledge of accessibility |
| Flexibility | Can adapt to new or unique situations that automated tools may not catch | Limited flexibility as automated tools are programmed to look for specific issues |
| Accuracy | More accurate as testers can identify subtle issues that automated tools may miss | Can produce false positives or miss certain issues that require manual testing |
| Cost | Can be costly as it requires trained testers and can be time-consuming | Can be cost-effective as it requires minimal resources and can be run repeatedly |
| Maintenance | Requires ongoing effort to keep up with changing guidelines and updates | Automated tools may require updates, but generally require less maintenance |
| Collaboration | Requires communication and collaboration between testers and developers to resolve issues | Developers can easily use automated tools to identify and resolve accessibility issues without the need for collaboration |
Automated accessibility testing or Manual accessibility testing?
So, which approach should you take? In truth, you shouldn’t consider one without the other. There can be times when automated testing has concluded yet your user base might still complain that something is wrong and the product is not accessible in line with WCAG, Section 508 or the ADA. Automation will not find everything.
An automated accessibility testing strategy will take time, effort and investment to establish, but if it fails to help people in the way it was intended, then you’re at risk of missing your accessibility targets. Therefore, successful accessibility testing cannot be confined to just one kind of testing - manual or automated. You need a holistic testing approach which is a combination of both automated and manual accessibility testing that ensures the product is fit-for-purpose for users with and without disabilities.
Once your web or mobile app is ready for testing, begin with automated testing by running an automated testing tool to quickly find any programmatic violations of the accessibility standards.
All tools provide you with a test report to review and issues to address in priority order. Once the violations are addressed, you can then ideally supplement your effort with manual accessibility testing by a group of real world users with differing disabilities.
Prioritise the fixing of issues raised by your users and then ensure that this testing approach is repeated often with new builds of code to a test environment.
The standards themselves will be subject to update and all software that is continuously developed has the potential to continually regress from both a functional and accessibility perspective. Make a solid accessibility testing strategy a continuous part of your software delivery methodology.
Automated vs Manual Accessibility Testing – Understanding the Difference | Webinar Alert
Let’s get some clarity on why both are critical for your compliance.
Regardless of your chosen automated Accessibility Testing tooling, you can still only hope to assess you application for a maximum of 50-60% of all potential Accessibility violations.
This means that for the remaining 40-50%, you need to be able to assess your application manually.
In this webinar, we’ll look at automated versus manual coverage and how you can bring both together to present a unified picture of your application’s compliance to WCAG 2.2 standards.
Thu, 10 Oct 2024 17:00 - 18:00 BST
Few seats left—click here to reserve your spot today!
