Accessibility testing using BrowserStack Live

Accessibility testing has emerged as an important sub-area in manual testing requirements for websites. This is largely due to renewed focus on making information technology accessible to all, and legislations such as the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act in the US.

Web accessibility refers to designing and building technology that is accessible by all, regardless of the type and degree of disability. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) provides a set of guidelines based on which websites can be designed and tested with a focus on accessibility. These guidelines aim to make web content acessible to people with a wide range of disabilities including physical, visual, or auditory disablities.

You can use the Screen Reader feature of Live to test an important subset of accessibility testing, that is, to test whether your users can navigate and use a website by using just a keyboard. The Screen Reader feature helps you test non-visual navigation and usability of your websites.

With Screen Reader, you can test the following aspects of your website:

• Text alternatives for non-textual content: Textual descriptions of content which are primarily oriented for visual consumption, such as pictures or graphics.
• Keyboard accessibility and navigability: Website content is in logical order, all elements are accessible, navigable, users are able to find required content, and determine where they are on a page using just the keyboard.

Next steps

• Test accessibility using Screen Reader on desktop
• Test accessibility using Screen Reader on Android