“Accessibility” refers to a software system’s usability by individuals without physical disabilities or impairments and those who do. Businesses may make digital material accessible to impaired persons via web accessibility testing. Business owners must ensure that their digital material complies with the ADA and Web Content Accessibility Principles because more nations are enacting laws to open web sources to everyone (WCAG). There are an astounding 136 resources available if you check the Web Accessibility Resources List! How do you choose the right web accessibility testing tools when starting in the accessibility world?
Naturally, many things must be considered when selecting an accessibility tool. This article speaks about the following tools helpful for accessibility testing. See our ranking of the top web accessibility testing tools before choosing one for your company.
Table Of Contents
- 1 What Are Accessibility Testing Tools?
- 2 Why is Utilizing Accessibility Testing Tools Important?
- 3 How to Select the Best Web Accessibility Testing Tools?
- 4 What are the Types of Accessibility Testing Tools?
- 5 Both Manual and Automated Accessibility Testing Tools
- 6 Conclusion
What Are Accessibility Testing Tools?
Accessibility testing tools are the ones that help identify and fix issues that make it difficult for people with disabilities to use websites and apps.
These tools can support automated testing via extensions, or, support manual testing using related technologies, or a combination of both.
These tools ensure that everyone has an inclusive digital experience.
Web Accessibility Testing Tools
Web accessibility testing tools evaluate and improve website and web application accessibility. They look at whether websites are compliant with standards such as WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines).
These standards would otherwise prohibit a user from accessing content due to disabilities, typically by identifying visual or functional issues that do not support universal access.
The components they evaluate include color contrast, ability to navigate using only a keyboard, and compatibility with screen readers — all intended to make online content equally available to all users regardless of how they interact with the system.
A consequence of implementing web accessibility testing tools is the enhancement of websites for people who have
- visual,
- auditory,
- motor, and
- cognitive impairments (inclusive of any other disabilities)
—thereby creating a more inclusive website.
This also assists in meeting legal obligations and ethical values on website accessibility; this means using these tools reduces your chance of penalties due to non-compliance.
In improving the accessibility of a website, these tools make the user experience better for all visitors: expanding reach to wider audiences and making brand identity more positive.
Why is Utilizing Accessibility Testing Tools Important?
Accessibility testing tools are able to deliver information about accessibility with greater accuracy and can help consistently and quickly find accessibility barriers. This approach leads to reduced number of bugs and enhances the accessibility of all digital assets.
Moreover, such tools play a significant role in software quality as a whole.
When developers catch accessibility issues at an early stage — typically through these tools — it prevents them from piling up technical debt later in the development process; thus precluding expensive fixes down the line.
Making accessibility testing part of the software development life cycle means more usable products for people with disabilities— hence promoting equal access and inclusivity in the digital world, which is long overdue for adoption.
How to Select the Best Web Accessibility Testing Tools?
Four primary factors stand out:
- The User Interface (UI): An attractive UI design makes the tool user-friendly!
This enables an easy testing environment and ensures high levels of tester productivity; this means it also keeps errors low. - Usability: The tool should be easy to use and understand. A highly complicated tool might lead to overlooking some issues, thus compromising the effectiveness of the test as well as reducing the efficiency of work done by testers.
- Integrations: The tool should support integration with any tools you are already using such as code editors or content management systems.This enables the team to catch accessibility issues much earlier during the developmental phase and take care of them on time without much effort— thus saving time and resources.
- Pricing: Accessibility is important but let’s face it — we all have budget constraints.
When considering accessibility tools, think about the upfront cost, maintenance fees you’ll be paying indefinitely, and any additional integration costs. Remember that some tools offer tiered plans based on organization size or number of websites.
The basis is sound, but not all tools will be appropriate for you. Perhaps take into account other factors, for example:
- Level of Automation: There are tools like Testsigma, that have all testing fully automated and some would demand manual intervention in difficult checks. There are many other criteria like this. So make your choice based on the priority that suits you.
- Basis of Support: Compatibility with the technology platforms your website employs (e.g., HTML5, CSS3) and universal compatibility with all major browsers and operating systems should be ensured.
- Informative Reporting: Effective reporting not only points out identified issues but also guides you on prioritizing fixes and monitoring advancement sequentially.
- Issue Identification Bars: The tool should pinpoint issues based on recognized accessibility standards such as WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines).
What Are the Types of Accessibility Testing Tools?
There are two main approaches to accessibility testing: Manual and Automated. Here we will look at the best tools in the market that are used when employing both the approaches for accessibility testing.
Why Manual Accessibility Testing?
- Ideal for detailed analysis: Manual testing allows for in-depth examination of a webpage’s accessibility features. You can experience the site from the perspective of users with disabilities, using tools like screen readers and color contrast checkers.
- Focus on specific user needs: You can tailor your testing to address the needs of particular user groups, like those with visual impairments or mobility limitations.
- Limited scalability: Testing every page on a large website manually is time-consuming and impractical.
Popular ManualAccessibilityTesting Tools:
Testsigma
Testsigma is a codeless GenAI-powered test automation platform that allows you to run automated tests for web, mobile, desktop, API, and Salesforce applications in the same platform. It is a cloud-based testing platform that allows testers to automate tests without requiring any coding knowledge.
Testsigma also supports accessibility testing, enabling testers to check if their web applications are digitally accessible and comply with the W3C accessibility guidelines.
You can perform functional, visual, and accessibility testing in parallel without spending too much time or manual effort. Accessibility testing in Testsigma can be done with a single click by just enabling a button while creating the test plan. It is as simple as that.
Learn more about how Testsigma makes automated accessibility testing codeless and efficient:
Wave:
A web-based tool that identifies potential accessibility issues and provides explanations. It not only identifies these issues but also provides clear explanations to help users understand and address them effectively.
Screen Readers:
Color Contrast Checkers:
Tools like A11y Color Contrast Accessibility Validator analyze the contrast between text and background to ensure readability compliance with WCAG guidelines.
Actf Adesigner:
A free disability simulator that evaluates how well website content works with assistive technologies like screen readers.
HTML_CodeSniffer:
Analyze your website’s code for accessibility violations based on WCAG or Section 508 guidelines.
Tota11y:
A JavaScript library that adds a toolbar to a webpage, highlighting accessibility issues like missing alt text or insufficient color contrast.
IBM Equal Access Accessibility Checker:
A broader accessibility testing tool for web applications, mobile apps, and PDFs. Identifies issues and offers recommendations.
We will now look into automated testing accessibility testing tools.
What happens in Automated Testing!
- Efficient for large websites: Automated tools can scan entire websites quickly, identifying numerous accessibility issues at once.
- Continuous monitoring: Schedule regular automated tests to stay on top of accessibility as your website evolves.
- Limited scope: Automation may miss certain accessibility problems requiring human judgment and experience.
Popular Automated Accessibility Testing Tools:
Tenon:
This is a powerful API-based tool designed to scan for accessibility issues and automatically fix them, making digital content more accessible to all users.
Pope Tech:
Similar to WAVE, it scans your site for accessibility errors and provides suggestions for fixing them.
Sortsite Desktop:
Analyzes an entire website in one click, checking for accessibility issues alongside SEO and other compliance areas.
Dynomapper:
Evaluates website code against accessibility guidelines and schedules automated tests with email notifications.
Rocket Validator:
A web crawler that scans up to 5,000 pages for accessibility conformance with a single click.
Tanaguru:
A web-based platform with visual charts that evaluates website accessibility compliance.
Usablenet AQA:
A cloud-based platform that can test individual web pages and user flows, with a unique feature allowing you to preview how your site works with screen readers.
Evinced:
This tool focuses on integrating accessibility testing into the development workflow. It utilizes AI and machine learning to analyze web pages and identify accessibility issues beyond what traditional code-based tools can detect.
Access Alchemy:
This is a browser extension that offers automated fixes for common accessibility problems. You define the fixes (like setting alt text for images), and Access Alchemy automatically applies them to relevant areas on your website.
Both Manual and Automated Accessibility Testing Tools
Here is a tool that can be both used both with manual tests and automated tests.
TPGi’s accessibility testing offerings can be considered both automated and manual depending on the specific service you choose:
- TPGi Automated Testing: TPGi offers a free WCAG scan that provides a general overview of your website’s accessibility. This is an automated service that analyzes your website’s code and identifies potential accessibility issues.
- TPGi Manual Testing: TPGi also offers a full-scale audit service where accessibility experts manually evaluate multiple templates across your website for compliance. This involves in-depth analysis and testing to ensure your website is accessible to users with disabilities.
Conclusion
By ensuring that websites and web applications can be used by people with disabilities like hearing problems, eyesight problems, epilepsy, and cognitive impairments, web accessibility testing is a sort of software usability testing. Any software system’s accessibility should constantly be tested because it enables everyone to use the product, especially people with physical limitations.
Today, a significant portion of physically impaired persons use software products for their daily tasks, and accessibility testing tools enable websites to become more user-friendly. The accessibility testing tool you use should fit your site’s needs and budget.