Testing Throughout Development
Testing is critical to establishing and maintaining the accessibility of a website. Incorporating testing throughout the development process will confirm and validate that accessibility specifications are being met. Designers, content specialists, quality assurance testers, and developers all play a role in testing for accessibility. All aspects of the product, from the coding to content updates, or even changing colours of text or icons can create an unintended accessibility issue.
Over time, changes in assistive technology or browser support might also introduce new accessibility problems. Regular updates or monitoring can reduce this risk.
The rest of this page highlights some specific tools that a person in each role may want to consider using.
- Designers: Check the colour contrast of your text content or icons. See the section on Colour Contrast Testing.
- Content Specialists: Consider the readability of your content and how easy it is to understand. This includes your use of plain language to make your content accessible for people with learning or other cognitive disabilities and language barriers. See the subsection on Plain Language.
- Quality Assurance (QA) Testers: Keyboard testing and screen reader testing ensures that features and workflows are accessible with the keyboard alone (no mouse). See the sections on Keyboard Testing and NVDA Screen Reader Testing.
- Developers: Using automation is an excellent way to test for accessibility. Quick fixes can be discovered and prevented by using automated testing tools. Automation does not guarantee accessibility; some manual validation is needed. See the section on Deque axe tools and Accessibility Insights.
Site Monitor Tools
For websites already in production, there are several accessibility dashboard tools that continually monitor the site looking for accessibility issues. These may be particularly appropriate for large organizations with large sites. These are typically paid tools. Some prevalent in the industry include:
- Deque – axe Monitor
- TPGi – ARC Domain Monitoring
- Level Access AMP (Accessibility Management Platform)
Specialized hardware or software that can assist people with disabilities to perceive and interact with digital content.
Any impairment, or difference in physical, mental, intellectual, cognitive, learning, or communication ability. Disabilities can be permanent, temporary, or episodic (meaning that the impact of the disability can change over time). There are different types of disabilities, including physical, vision-related, hearing-related, and cognitive disabilities. The specifics of a disability vary by person and a person can have more than one disability.
A technology that helps people who have difficulties seeing to access and interact with digital content, like websites or applications via audio or touch (e.g. Braille). Screen readers include JAWS, NVDA, and VoiceOver.
