Testlio’s Approach to Accessibility Testing Helen Burge , Director of Accessibility September 6th, 2024 Accessibility is important to all users of digital products as it helps them use the product without becoming disabled by code that doesn’t consider accessibility requirements. More people are becoming aware of the need for accessibility, and varying laws are being set. One is the European Accessibility Act (EAA), which will come into effect in June 2025, and another is the US Department of Justice revising Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in April 2024. Whatever your reason for thinking about accessibility testing, it is difficult to research how to approach it. If you’re reading this article, you’re likely exploring different methodologies and eager to learn more. The User-First Approach to Accessibility Testing When asked about the best way to deliver accessibility audits, I often see common pitfalls and have dedicated time to creating a more cohesive approach to prevent them. As the director of accessibility at Testlio, I find that our approach to testing for accessibility is quite simple. We put the user first. We understand each user has many different approaches to using a website, and we try to replicate as many methods as possible in our testing. Making sure the user experience is our main focus helps our results capture the issues you should address first. This approach is a team effort and not down to one single person. I have also found that keeping communication open with the team helps us all stay honest and learn new skills. This article highlights our approach, which is unique in several ways. We try our best to deliver actionable bugs and consistent results for all of our clients. Testing When testing for accessibility, we make sure we cover the guidelines most appropriate for your content: Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), User Agent Accessibility Guidelines (UAAG), or Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG). It’s not just important to ensure you meet the success criteria (normative findings) but also that you are aware of the best practices to improve the user experience that are not covered in the normative issues. At Testlio, our testing methodologies ensure that while no issues get ruled out, we highlight what are normative versus best practices so you can decide how to implement and prioritize fixes. To help keep the testing consistent, we have guidance on how to test and check items, but nothing too prescriptive to allow all edge cases to be covered. The tests are written to help the team guarantee testing accuracy and ensure we cover the success criterion accurately. By giving guidance, the team focuses more on the content to test rather than trying to read the test steps. Issue Format The issues are written with guidance on how to fix the issue, why it is happening and examples of how it impacts the user through videos. This ensures the issues you receive are actionable and understandable with clear guidance on how to fix them. Each issue is reviewed by a peer or expert to make sure the deliverable meets the expected level of quality. Regular Team Meetings With remote work, it is important to have regular team meetings. In addition to regular meetings with other Testlions, we also find having communication channels open in multiple ways helps everyone feel valued in the team. This level of open communication allows everyone to raise questions and discuss complicated issues. In keeping with our culture of transparency, these conversations are open to all team members, so learnings are available to anyone, no matter which part of the team they are in. Training In addition to regular and open communication, we offer our teams opportunities to learn and share updates as requested. It is vital to keep our learning updated to stay current with how technology will work with accessibility in mind. Whenever we host a training session for our internal team members, we record them so they can serve as refreshers and on-demand knowledge hubs. We also document all best practices and normative issues so everyone can be consistent and coherent when testing. Conclusion At Testlio, we make sure that we do not rely on one person’s opinion so as to not miss any blockers to users. While we can never guarantee that 100% of the bugs will be raised, what we can promise is that the issues found will be the ones that primarily impact the user. This user-first approach has proven to work with several of our clients and is an impactful way to deliver the most accessible user experience. Additionally, when logging issues, we do not log one issue per instance but combine issues that repeat. Grouping issues helps developers fix issues without spending a lot of time trying to work out the repetition in the reported items. This ensures our work is not just an audit done using a waterfall methodology but also Agile testing for components that will fit the methodology you use in your team! Learn more about Testlio’s Accessibility Testing Services here or contact a member of our team to see how we can help you deliver the best user experiences.