Web Accessibility Testing - Re imagining Universal Access to Information

This presentation is among the Top 27 Best Papers/Practice/Tutorials selected, out of 460+ submissions received, to be presented @STC 2012.

Presentation Abstract

Lot of countries have started legislating websites (along with other communications) to be accessible for people with disabilities. Hence Accessibility compliance is the next paradigm shift and most businesses are increasingly making their websites accessibility compliant. This brings in the necessity to perform Web Accessibility Testing.

The types of disability that people have are Visual, Motor/Mobility, Auditory, Seizures, Cognitive/Intellectual. People with these disabilities will have challenges in accessing and using any applications and IT products should focus on these challenges as part of their solutions.

W3C consortium has created an initiative, Web Accessibility Initiative that defined Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). The guidelines define standards and guidelines based on which IT solutions can be provided by addressing the Accessibility Issues. These standads and guidelines serve as a tool kit to the tester community to test for the web accessibility of the IT Solutions.

This white papers looks at what and how to test for Web Accessibility, their advantages and challenges faced. We take a look at the governing principles and their application to web sites and the market it caters to leading to the market share for IT vendors to ensure their pie in the game.

About the Authors

Suvojit (Suvo) Mukherjee is a Program Manager - Testing practice at Collabera. He has over 12 years of experience in Program Management, Consulting, Account Management and Software Testing. He currently heads testing for three verticals. He also heads the Automation Center of Excellence. Prior to that he was with iGATE Global Solutions as a Senior Test Manager managing a large Business Unit testing group. Prior to iGATE, he was with Infosys Technologies playing various roles in software testing and quality management.

B Vijaya Varma is working for Collabera as Senior Test Manager. He has with him more than 12 years of experience in the software services industry. He has worked on different software assignments involving, programming, analysis, testing, quality and onsite customer handling. He also contributed to the training activity in terms of testing across various teams and was instrumental in establishing a Test CoE at his previous organization Aditi Technologies Pvt Ltd. Prior to joining Collabera Vijay was a Project Manager with Aditi Technologies, Bangalore.

Transcript

1. Web Accessibility Testing Re imagining Universal Access to Information October 20, 2012 Vijaya Varma B, Senior Test Manager – Testing Practice, Collabera Suvojit Mukherjee, Program Manager – Testing Practice, Collabera
2. 2 Agenda
3. 3 Imagining Accessibility
4. What is Accessibility? Why is it important? 4
5. Need for Accessibility – The World Around Us 5
6. Need for Accessibility – The World Around Us 6
7. Manifestations - Website with images switched off 7
8. Manifestations - Image/Content Issues 8
9. Manifestations - Text, Color and Page Layouts 9
10. Re-imagining Accessibility - Standards 10
11. Testing For Accessibility 11
12. 12 Accessibility Validation Framework & Tools
13. 13 Case Study – Education Portal
14. 14 Patterns & Analysis
15. 15 WCAG 1.4.3 - Remediation
16. 16 WCAG 1.1.1 - Recommendations
17. Benefits of Accessibility Testing 17
18. Summary 18