testing for accessibility without breaking the bank
TRANSCRIPT
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TESTING FOR ACCESSIBILITY WITHOUT BREAKING THE BANK
CECILIE HAUGSTVEDT, TEST LEAD AT COMPUTAS
@chaugstvedt
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WHAT IF WE DON’T TEST?
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ACCESSIBILITY IS REQUIRED BY LAW
• By 2021, all IT solutions must be universally designed
• Web sites: WCAG 2.0 Level A and AA with exception for the texting rules
THE COST OF IGNORING ACCESSIBILITY
BAD REPUTATION
PROJECT DELAYS
FINES
LOST REVENUE
ETHICAL ISSUES
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FEWER CUSTOMERS
EXPENSIVE PATCHING
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EFFECTIVE AND EFFICIENT TESTING STARTS EARLY
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CHOOSE TECHNOLOGY WISELY
• Compensating for bad technology can be time-consuming
• Add accessibility as a criteria when introducing new technology
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REVIEW THE DESIGN
• Look for elements that require extra attention: tables, graphics, input forms, pop-up windows,…
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CHECK THE LANGUAGE
• Universal means for all – use plain language
• If it’s hard to read for you, it’s hard to read for someone else
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DO AUTOMATED CHECKS
• Check for accessibility in your continuous integration pipeline
• Computers are really good at discovering violations of some of the rules
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USE CHECKLISTS
• For manual code review• People discover things the
automatic checks cannot:– Sensible names of
elements – Good descriptions of
images
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USE TOOLS FOR MANUAL TESTING
• Online tools– WAVE Chrome
Extension• Offline tools• Screen reader
– NVDA
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TEST WITH A SCREEN READER
• The final test• Make sure you have
removed all obvious errors first
• Skip this step if you cannot afford to get a real user of a screen reader to do the test
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COMMON MISTAKES
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ILLUSTRATIONS
• Pictures are good, alt-texts are not optional
• Leave the alt-text empty if the image is purely decorative
• Text videos even though the law does not require you to do so
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Dra bildet til plassholderen eller klikk ikonet for å legge til
LINKS
• Don’t let the users guess• Use sensible names• Read more
• More information• Click here• ...
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NAVIGATION
• Always do at least one keyboard-only test
• Make the links large enough
• Use HTML 5 and semantic sections
Dra bildet til plassholderen eller klikk ikonet for å legge til
<aside>
<article>
<header>
<nav>
<footer>
<section>
<section>
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COLOR CONTRAST
• 5 – 8 % of all Norwegian men are color blind
• Think about a sunny day• No discussion needed: the
answer can be found online
This is not easy to readThis is better
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MOTIVATION TEST COMMON ERRORS
Do it because you care
Avoid common mistakesStart test early
