In the digital age, mobile devices have become an integral aspect of our daily existence, whether for work, leisure, or education. It is crucial to ensure everyone, including people with disabilities, can use mobile applications. While there are numerous mobile accessibility testing methods and technologies available today, many of them necessitate the expertise of an experienced developer. It is recommended to engage an expert for more thorough mobile accessibility testing. An essential stage in the development of apps is accessibility testing for mobile devices.
In this article, we will learn more about mobile accessibility testing with Appium and accessibility tools. You will go through how to test mobile devices using Appium by running a mobile accessibility test.
What Is Mobile Accessibility Testing?
Mobile apps and websites must pass mobile accessibility testing to guarantee that people with impairments can use them by covering the range of physical, cognitive, auditory, and visual impairments. Mobile accessibility testing ensures that all users, irrespective of their capabilities or constraints, can access and make good use of the services and content on these platforms.
Methods for Mobile Accessibility Testing with Accessibility Tools
The following techniques can be used for mobile accessibility testing by inexperienced developers and individuals unfamiliar with accessibility testing but who do not have access to the code.
- Using the built-in iOS and Android Accessibility options, check for text enlargement, magnification, color contrast, and zoom conformity. You can next assess whether your application reacts quickly to these OS choices and, if so, how the interface changes. Watch out for truncated text, elements that are magnified in focus but not visible when using the screen reader and magnification, and text that has poor contrast even when displayed inverted.
- To test for accessibility for users using different input methods or spoken commands, utilize Siri, Switch Control, and the new Voice Control functionality in iOS. On Android, choose Google Assistant, Switch Access, and Voice Access.
- Test whether Talkback (the built-in screen reader for Android) and VoiceOver (the built-in screen reader for iOS) are compatible with screen readers. When testing, watch out for incorrectly read text, items with the wrong or unknown labels, unannounced headings, and new material that arrives on the screen as a result of a user action but has yet to be announced.
- Check for missing item labels, duplicate item descriptions, touch target size, unsupported item types, text and image contrast, and other issues using the Google Accessibility Scanner.
- By taking a screenshot and comparing the hex values with the aid of a color contrast tool, you may check for color contrast conformity.
Exploring Appium
Appium is a freely available, open-source automation tool designed for the purpose of testing mobile applications on both iOS and Android platforms. Since testers and developers may create test scripts in various programming languages, including Java, Python, and JavaScript, it is a flexible choice for testing mobile apps.
Writing Mobile Accessibility Tests with Appium: A Step-by-Step Guide
Accessibility testing is essential to ensure your mobile applications are inclusive and intuitive, especially for people with disabilities. Appium is a helpful tool for automating and accelerating these tests. We’ll walk you through the process of generating Appium mobile accessibility tests step-by-step without having you write any code.
Step 1: Create Your Setting
- Install Appium: First, set up Appium on the computer where you’ll be developing. On their official website, Appium offers thorough installation instructions for several systems.
- Install Required Drivers: Ensure you have the required drivers installed for the mobile platforms you wish to test (iOS or Android). Appium works with both systems.
- Pick a Programming Language: Appium supports various languages such as Java, Python, JavaScript, and others, allowing you to write test scripts in your preferred language.
Step 2: Choose the accessibility features you want to test.
You must decide which accessibility features in your mobile application you want to evaluate before you write any tests. Screen reader compatibility, keyboard navigation, text-to-speech functionality, high contrast/color schemes, and alternative image text are standard accessibility features.
Step 3: Construct test scenarios
Choose the particular scenarios you want to test. You should check whether your app’s buttons have suitable labels for screen readers or whether photographs have illustrative alternate text. To direct your testing efforts, compile a list of these scenarios.
Step 4: Become familiar with the Appium commands
Although we won’t get into programming here, becoming familiar with Appium’s commands and features for dealing with mobile apps is essential. These commands and how to use them for testing are covered in full in the Appium documentation.
Step 5: Construct test scripts
It’s time to write your test scripts at this point. You can create scripts that imitate user interactions with your mobile app using the programming language of your choice. These scripts will provide task instructions, including clicking buttons, selecting menu items, and examining accessibility features.
Step 6: Implement test scripts
Use Appium to run your test scripts after you’ve written them. Depending on your testing requirements, you can run your tests on real device cloud, or emulators/simulators.
Step 7: Review Findings
Review the outcomes after the tests have been run. Look for any accessibility problems or breaches of the elements that promote accessibility you previously discovered. These are a few examples of missing labels, the wrong focus order, or insufficient alternate text.
Step 8: Prioritize and record the issues
Any accessibility problems you encounter should be documented, along with their severity and user effect. Based on their significance and potential influence on the user experience, rank these concerns in order of importance.
Tools for Accessibility Testing
Although Appium is a good tool for automating mobile testing, it wasn’t designed with accessibility testing in mind. To thoroughly assess the accessibility of mobile apps, you’ll need additional accessibility testing tools.
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Accessibility Scanner (Android) and Accessibility Inspector (iOS)
Both the iOS and Android operating systems come with built-in accessibility inspection tools. With the aid of these tools, you may inspect the accessibility tree of an app, look for any missing labels, and assess the accessibility of the user interface as a whole.
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Deque’s axe
Famous accessibility testing toolkit Axe by Deque integrates easily with Appium. It creates thorough information on accessibility problems and offers automatic accessibility testing for iOS and Android apps.
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Testing Accessibility on Actual Devices
Testing on actual hardware is essential to ensure the software works correctly in everyday situations. Tools for manual and automatic accessibility testing on real devices are available through services like Microsoft’s Accessibility Insights.
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Screen Readers
Use popular screen reader apps like VoiceOver (iOS) and TalkBack (Android) on actual devices to evaluate your app’s usability with screen readers.
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Checkers with Color Contrast
You can assess color contrast ratios to ensure readability for users with visual impairments using tools like the WebAIM Contrast Checker.
As previously mentioned, there exist various tools for assessing accessibility. Nevertheless, configuring each device to cater to a particular user’s requirements can pose a formidable challenge. Concurrently, it is imperative to ensure cross-browser accessibility and ascertain how your website displays across diverse browsers and operating systems. It is precisely where persistent quality cloud testing platforms such as LambdaTest come into play, allowing you to execute accessibility assessments on web applications.
LambdaTest is an AI-powered test orchestration and execution platform that helps you perform manual and automation testing processes over 3000 real desktop browsers, devices, and operating system combinations. It offers the capability to evaluate website and web application accessibility using Screen Reader and Speech Viewer, employing NVDA (Non-Visual Desktop Access) for both Windows and macOS platforms.
This section will elucidate the procedure for assessing website accessibility on the LambdaTest platform.
- Register on the LambdaTest account and subsequently log in.
- Navigate to the left sidebar and select the option for Real-Time Testing > Browser Testing.
- Input the URL you wish to test and specify the VERSION, OS, and RESOLUTION settings. Once configured, initiate the test by clicking the START button.
- As a cloud-based machine launches, access the Settings icon and select the Accessibility section.
- Engage the “Screen Reader” checkbox to obtain an auditory description of your webpage through VoiceOver.
Mobile Accessibility Testing Best Practices
Testing your mobile applications for accessibility is essential to ensuring that they are inclusive and usable by people with impairments. Testing for accessibility tries to find and remove obstacles that can make it difficult for individuals with impairments to use your app efficiently. Here are a few guidelines for completing thorough mobile accessibility testing.
Select a Range of Devices and Platforms:
Make sure that the range of mobile platforms (iOS, Android), screen sizes, and mobile devices is covered by your accessibility testing. Various devices will probably have multiple accessibility features and difficulties.
Utilize tools for testing software and accessibility
Use tools for testing software and accessibility explicitly tailored for mobile apps. Accessibility concerns can be rapidly found with apps like VoiceOver for iOS, Axe for Android, and Accessibility Scanner for Android.
The Value of Hands-On Testing
Although automated testing techniques have their role, they frequently fail to detect accessibility problems. Manual testing is, therefore, essential. Testers who are impaired or have obtained accessibility training must perform manual testing. These testers can offer insightful opinions and practical experience.
Accessibility for Keyboard
Check that every interactive feature in your software can be accessed and utilized to navigate using a keyboard or keyboard emulation. Test your focus while using keyboard shortcuts and logical tab positioning.
Suitable Contrast
Provide Enough Contrast to Make Reading Easy for People with Low Vision or Color Blindness For persons with impaired vision or color blindness, reading text and interactive features should be simple. Use tools for assessing color and contrast to ensure WCAG compliance.
Alt text Image
For blind users, an alternative text field should be made available, including a description of the purpose and significance of each image, icon, and button. Verify that alt text is being utilized properly.
Focus on Navigation and Focus signals.
Ensure that interactive elements have obvious focus signals (such as highlighted borders) and that screen readers can help users navigate your app. Pay particular attention to navigation and focus signals.
Include Text Equivalents for Multimedia
If your app has multimedia (audio, video), include transcripts, captions, and audio explanations so that people with disabilities can access it.
Conclusion
Mobile apps must pass accessibility testing to ensure they are inclusive and usable by people with disabilities. Appium provides a reliable framework for doing thorough accessibility testing on mobile apps when used with other accessibility testing tools.
You may develop mobile applications that a range of users can utilize by adhering to best practices and incorporating accessibility testing in your development workflow. By doing this, you’ll improve user experience and show that you’re committed to diversity in the digital age.
