The Role of Functional Testing In Accessibility Testing

Technology must be accessible to all, including those with disabilities, in the rapidly changing digital landscape.  In this context, Automation testing becomes essential to remove obstacles and establish a more welcoming online community. Modern digital life requires accessibility testing, and functional testing improves it.

Tool and website accessibility testing ensures that people with physical, cognitive, neurological, auditory, or visual impairments can use them. This test evaluates digital product accessibility using WCAG.

The digital age requires the Internet for work, government, commerce, health care, education, and recreation. 

Integrating accessibility into functional testing ensures that design and development prioritize accessibility. Early detection and correction of accessibility problems by developers and testers can save time and money.

What is Accessibility Testing?

Software should be accessible to everyone, including disabled people. This is the goal of accessibility testing, a subset of usability testing. This type of testing looks for and fixes accessibility issues that could make the product difficult for people with disabilities to use efficiently.

This definition of disability includes various conditions, including neurological, cognitive, linguistic, physical, speech, vision, and hearing impairments.

Accessibility testing ensures that software and web applications comply with WCAG, Section 508, and other international accessibility standards.

These suggestions offer a framework for producing more inclusive digital content usable by people with a range of cognitive and physical abilities.

Common Standards and Guidelines

Several standards and guidelines have been established to help developers and testers ensure digital accessibility. The most widely recognized among these include:

1. WWW Consortium: World Wide Web Consortium guidelines are the largest and most popular. It suggests many ways to make web content accessible to disabled people. As technology and needs change, WCAG is used to measure legal compliance.

2. Section 508: Federal agencies must use disability-accessible information and electronic technology.  Federal agency websites, software, and other digital content are included.

3. ADA: The Americans with Disabilities Act requires public and private organizations to make their websites and digital products accessible to people with disabilities, but it does not address digital accessibility.

4. European EN 301 549: Like WCAG, this standard sets accessibility guidelines for ICT services and goods like digital devices, software, and online content.

Design, content, and development professionals must follow these standards to make digital products accessible to all users, no matter their ability. Accessibility testing must follow these standards to create inclusive, accessible digital products.

Definition of Functional Testing

Functional testing checks that each software function works as specified. This testing focuses on black box testing and not application source code. It focuses on the following:

• User interface
• APIs
• Databases
• Security
• Client/server applications

Testing the user interface, APIs, databases, security, etc., against the functional requirements or specifications is the main objective of functional testing. It checks that the app works and has all the features.

Differences and Similarities between Functional and Accessibility Testing

Here are some differences between functional and accessibility testing –

• Focus: Accessibility testing ensures the program is usable by people with various disabilities, while functional testing ensures it works properly.
• Criteria: Section 508 and WCAG guide accessibility testing, while software functionality drives functional testing.
• Tools and Techniques: Functional and accessibility testing can employ distinct tools and techniques, although some overlap may exist. Creating a disabled user experience for accessibility testing often requires specialized tools.

Here are some similarities between functional and accessibility testing –

• The goal of Quality Assurance: Both testing methods improve software quality and ensure it meets standards before release.
• User-Centric: Both approaches prioritize user satisfaction but from different angles.
• Part of Testing Lifecycle: Both are essential to developing robust, user-friendly software applications.

How do Functional and Accessibility Testing Work Together?

While distinct, functional and accessibility testing work together to ensure software applications are functional and accessible.

Here’s how:

• Early Issue Detection: Integrating accessibility considerations into functional testing can help identify accessibility issues early in development, making improvements easier and cheaper.
• Holistic Testing Approach: Functional and accessibility testing ensures applications are technically sound and universally accessible.
• Improved User Experience: Functional and accessibility testing ensures the app works for everyone. They create a more inclusive user experience for a wider audience.
• Compliance and Inclusivity: Functional testing ensures functional compliance, while accessibility testing ensures legal and ethical inclusivity. Dual compliance boosts the software’s and the organization’s reputation.

Integrating accessibility into functional testing ensures digital products are functional and accessible to disabled users. This integration is essential for creating inclusive software for diverse users. 

Below, we discuss ways to integrate accessibility criteria into functional test cases, tools and technologies that support accessibility, and examples of successful integration.

Methods for Adding Accessibility to Functional Test Cases

Here are some of the methods for adding accessibility to functional test cases –

• Set Accessibility Standards Early

incorporating Section 508 and WCAG accessibility standards into the requirements and design process.  This ensures functional specifications include accessibility.

• Create Accessibility-Focused Test Cases

Test keyboard navigation, screen reader compatibility, and color contrast ratios. These should be part of the standard test suite.

• Use Disabled Personas

Create personas for users with disabilities to guide testing.  This helps determine how disabilities affect product use and ensures test cases cover many accessibility issues.

• Leverage Automated and Manual Testing

Combine automated testing tools with manual testing to cover various accessibility issues. Automation can quickly find accessibility issues, while manual testing can show disabled users’ experiences.

• Train Testers in Accessibility

Give testers accessibility tools, procedures, and guidelines training. To successfully integrate accessibility into functional testing, one must grasp the fundamentals of accessible design and know how to conduct accessibility tests.

Tools and Technologies that Support Accessibility in Functional Testing

Here are some tools and technologies that support accessibility in functional testing –

• Automated Testing Tools: Axe, Wave, and Google Lighthouse can find web application accessibility issues.
• Screen Readers: VoiceOver, NVDA, and JAWS testing guarantees that visually impaired people can utilize applications.
• Keyboard accessibility testing: Methods and instruments to check keyboard navigation guarantee full functionality for users unable to use a mouse.
• Color Contrast Analyzers: Assess text and background color accessibility.

Case Studies or Examples of Successful Integration

Here are some case studies or examples of successful integration –

1. Microsoft

Microsoft leads in accessibility in development. The organization helps developers create accessible products with inclusive design principles and resources. Microsoft uses its inclusive design toolkit to make all products accessible.

2. IBM

IBM’s accessibility standards and checklists align with global standards. IBM’s Accessibility Handbook and automated testing tools like IBM Equal Access Accessibility Checker are resources that support the integration of accessibility into functional testing.

3. Government Websites

Many global websites have integrated accessibility into their development and testing processes to meet legal requirements.  The UK government’s GOV.UK website is often cited for its accessibility, setting a model for public sector websites’ functional testing processes.

Make digital products usable and enjoyable for everyone with accessible, functional testing, not just compliance or legality. Organizations can improve digital inclusion by adopting these strategies and using available tools and technologies.  Microsoft and IBM case studies and government website implementations demonstrate this integrated approach.

Challenges of Functional Testing and Accessibility

Integrating accessibility into functional testing is difficult, but strategic approaches and best practices can overcome it.

• Lack of Knowledge and Understanding: Many development teams are not well-versed in accessibility standards and their significance.
• Insufficient Training: It is possible that developers and testers are not sufficiently trained in accessibility testing techniques and resources.
• Complexity of Accessibility Testing: Considering different types of disabilities and how they impact user interactions can make accessibility testing quite complicated.
• Integration into Current Processes: It can be difficult to integrate accessibility testing into current testing workflows, particularly in hectic development environments.
• Limitations of Automated Testing: Although automated tools can find many accessibility problems, there are some issues that they are unable to detect, particularly those that affect how people with disabilities interact with the system.

Solutions of Functional Testing and Accessibility

Here are some solutions for functional testing and accessibility –

• Education and Awareness: Start by informing the group about the significance of accessibility, including the necessary legal and ethical considerations.
• Extensive Training: Offer specialized instruction on applying accessibility testing tools and standards (such as WCAG).
• Incorporate Accessibility Early: Do not just incorporate accessibility considerations during the testing phase of the development process; do so, starting with the design phase as well.
• Combine Automated and Manual Testing: Use tools to identify simple problems and use manual testing to evaluate the user experience and more complex accessibility features.
• Use an Inclusive Design Philosophy: Consider all users’ abilities and digital content interactions.
• Iterative Testing: Continuously test accessibility and incorporate feedback throughout development.

Functional Testing’s Effect on Accessibility

Finding accessibility problems and creating user interfaces that are accessible are made possible through the integration of accessibility considerations with functional testing.

Functional testing is a useful technique for identifying accessibility barriers that impact the user experience because it concentrates on how the user interacts with the application. Form functionality testing can reveal keyboard navigation or screen reader compatibility issues that code-level testing may miss.

Functional testing confirms that all user interface elements are usable and understandable and is fundamentally responsible for ensuring accessibility. Developers can improve UI accessibility by testing with users with different disabilities.

Accessible, functional testing enhances the user experience and helps users with disabilities. All users benefit from improved usability through accessible design principles like readable text and easy navigation.

Functional and accessibility testing improves a product’s usability, intuitiveness, and ability to satisfy user needs.

Cross-browser platforms or cloud-based platforms significantly enhance the scope and efficiency of functional and accessibility testing.  This diversity is crucial for accessibility testing because users with disabilities may use various assistive technologies that behave differently across browsers and operating systems.

Platforms like LambdaTest allow testers to verify that an application is accessible in the environments most likely used by their target audience.

LambdaTest, an AI-powered test orchestration and execution platform, offers automation capabilities. It allows repetitive tests to be automated across multiple environments. This is particularly beneficial for accessibility testing, where specific tests must be repeated under different conditions to ensure comprehensive coverage.

Continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipelines can be integrated with automation to guarantee early and frequent accessibility testing, which speeds up the detection and fixing of problems.

Because AI-powered test orchestration and execution solutions like LambdaTest provide scalable resources, organizations can modify their usage by their present testing requirements without making sizable upfront infrastructure investments. This platform also has tools to help team members collaborate, share findings, prioritize issues, and track accessibility barrier resolution.

Conclusion

A significant change in the process of developing digital products is the merging of accessibility and functional testing, which highlights how crucial it is to produce software that is both functional and widely accessible. By guaranteeing that all users, including those with disabilities, can utilize applications and websites, this strategy highlights a dedication to inclusivity.

As we have seen, there are difficulties with this integration. However, these obstacles can be surmounted with the appropriate techniques, resources, and frame of mind, producing digital products that are more ethically and legally compliant, inclusive, and useful.

The integration of functional and accessibility testing shows that developers and testers must be more inclusive. Development teams can create diverse digital products by considering a variety of user needs from the start.

Inclusivity improves usability and the user experience for people with disabilities, potentially expanding digital products’ user base and impact.

Developers and testers should consider accessibility an integral part of the development process rather than a compliance box.

This goal can be achieved by investing in education, inclusive design, and automated and manual testing. Additionally, a diverse testing team, including people with disabilities, can provide valuable insights that improve product accessibility and usability.