How AudioEye Conducts Expert Custom Accessibility Testing

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How AudioEye Conducts Expert Custom Accessibility Testing

Posted November 13, 2023

AudioEye

Posted November 13, 2023

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Learn how expert custom testing fits into a comprehensive accessibility plan and how AudioEye's certified accessibility experts conduct accessibility testing.

Accessibility testing can help organizations determine if their websites, mobile apps, and other digital content are accessible to the 1.3 billion people globally living with a disability.

Whether you’re considering accessibility testing or just want to learn more about the different approaches, here’s a breakdown of the different types of accessibility testing — and why AudioEye recommends combining automated testing with expert human audits.

Breaking Down the Different Types of Accessibility Testing

Accessibility testing is the practice of evaluating digital content against common accessibility standards, such as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).

Most organizations rely on automated accessibility tools or expert custom testing, although either approach by itself can struggle to identify or remediate every accessibility issue.

Although automated solutions tend to be relatively inexpensive and easy to set up, they cannot test for every WCAG criteria — or catch accessibility barriers that require deeper contextual understanding or human subjectivity. At AudioEye, our automated accessibility solution can identify up to 70% of common accessibility issues — and automatically remediate about two-thirds of them.

This is one of the highest rates in the industry, but it isn’t comprehensive. If you only use automation to test your digital content’s accessibility, you’ll almost always miss some accessibility violations.

This is where expert custom testing audits from people using keyboard-only navigation and assistive technologies like screen readers can help fill the gaps left by automation.

"I have a great opportunity to find accessibility issues that may be negatively impacting a real person, help troubleshoot them, and then see them being fixed – knowing that issue won't be reoccurring for anyone else when they're trying to go about their everyday life.”

Kaely, AudioEye QA Manager, AT Tester, Certified JAWS Individual

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How AudioEye Conducts Expert Custom Testing

At AudioEye, our industry-leading Digital Accessibility Platform automatically delivers over 1.3 billion remediations daily and is able to identify patterns as they emerge.

However, we recognize the need for expert human testing — especially from members of the disability community.

In addition to ongoing automated monitoring of customer websites, our team of certified accessibility experts and assistive technology users also work with customers to test key pages and workflows.

1. Identify key user actions and paths

We work with customers to understand specific “workflows,” which are common paths a user takes to accomplish a key task on that website or mobile app. For example, a workflow of an e-commerce website might involve a user searching for and then purchasing a product. So, if a user is looking to buy a pair of socks, the workflow represents all the steps it would take for that user to navigate the website, find the socks, add them to their cart, and complete checkout.

2. Evaluate the workflow pages

Using screen readers and keyboard-only navigation commands, our expert testers start on the homepage and go through the workflow, testing each page for any accessibility issues missed by automated scanning.

Among many other common accessibility issues, testers check the following:

  • All buttons and form fields on a page have labels and can be activated with keyboard commands.
  • Images have appropriate alt text that a screen reader can read to describe the image.
  • All the links have context, meaning the link description tells the end-user exactly where it will take them. 
  • Navigation of pages makes logical sense and content is organized well, preferably using headings to describe the content that follows.

3. Test against WCAG

After testing against workflows, our expert testers start another round of testing, this time against WCAG — the standard framework to measure a website’s level of accessibility and legal compliance — and for the general usability of the website. To do this, AudioEye’s testers follow a checklist.

4. Log all accessibility issues 

As testers go through a website, they log key details about each accessibility issue, including:

  1. A description of the issue.
  2. How the page element or user action should function when fixed.
  3. The relevant WCAG criteria.
  4. An impact rating based on the severity of the accessibility barrier, to help teams prioritize fixes. For example, if a checkout button can’t be activated with keyboard commands alone, that would prevent users from being able to make a purchase and would be treated as a high-impact issue.

5. Developer remediation

Once our testers log all the issues across pages and workflows, AudioEye developers go through every logged accessibility issue and create automated fixes or provide guidance on at-source fixes for internal developer teams.

6. Re-evaluate pages to ensure fix

Following the remediations, the testing team does another round of expert custom testing to ensure that all of their previously logged issues have been fixed by the developers. If not, the issues are sent back to the developers — a process that continues until every issue is resolved.

Internet browser with an AudioEye accessibility score progress bar

A Comprehensive Accessibility Plan

To make sure all accessibility issues are caught and fixed on your website, put in place a comprehensive accessibility plan that includes both automated and expert custom accessibility testing. 

Similar to AudioEye, most manual testing companies test for accessibility issues and provide a report, but many stop there – which means the clients are required to fix the issues themselves. The problem here is that not everyone is well-versed in accessibility, knows how to fix accessibility issues, or even has the time and other resources to do so. Manual testing and remediation are expensive and unsustainable for the majority of small and mid-sized businesses.  

Combining patented AI technology and a team of certified testers, AudioEye’s hybrid approach provides automated and expert custom testing and remediation, supported by live and ongoing monitoring, training resources, expert advice, and more.

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