Accessibility testing is often the most ignored testing carried out in the Software Development Lifecycle. In the majority of the organizations, Accessibility Testing Services is given a low priority. The end result is that the developers make designs and applications that are not accessible. In addition to the law, whereby, it is necessary to comply with Section 508 to make accessible applications, the designers have to make designs that are socially responsive and are able to drive more traffic to your website.
When you opt for Accessibility Testing Services, your organization will be able to derive multiple benefits which are otherwise missed out in the software development lifecycle. Following are the top 10 advantages of accessibility testing:
- Time Efficient: When you are testing products for accessibility manually with tools like JAWS and NVDA, the testing time taken is huge. It normally takes 1 to 3 hours to complete the test of a single web page. This means that if the web application has 100 web pages, time taken will be not less than 40 person days to complete the testing. However, if you opt for automated testing tool, time taken gets reduced to a great extent. It takes hardly half the time.
- Identification of Issues in The Early Stages Of The Lifecycle: Most of the organizations are opting for Agile Testing as it helps to identify the issues in the early stages of the testing lifecycle. Accessibility testing is carried out in the last stage just before the product is about to be launched. As such, most of the organizations avoid the accessibility testing. But, with automated accessibility testing, it is possible to detect the issues in every stage, thereby, providing you with the option to apply the corrective measures as and when required.
- Saves Money: When you detect the issues at the later stages of production, you have to spend a higher amount to correct them. Whereas, if the issues are detected in the initial stages, corrective measures are taken immediately, thereby, you end up saving more.
- Increase the Test Coverage: With automated accessibility testing, you get to know about the tools used for testing, what needs to be tested manually, thereby, increasing the coverage of accessibility testing.
- Change in Software Development Culture: When accessibility testing is implemented on a daily basis, it makes building application easier and more accessible rather than making the changes in the latter parts of production.
- Don’t Depend On The Developer’s Know-How Of What Is Accessible And What Is Not: With JAWS and other screen reading technologies, the organization has to depend on the knowledge of the developers. As such, often it happens that certain important issues might slip out of the testing procedure because of the tester’s limited knowledge. However, with the automated accessibility testing the rules and logical implementation of the testing is defined in the early stages, thereby, making it possible to carry out a successful testing.
- Accessible Web Development Technologies Possible: When the developers are adept at working with the latest open source web development technologies, they will be aware of what issues might arise in the long run. Thus, they will be better prepared to make the projects more accessible in the future.
- DevOps Implementation Made Easy: With automated accessibility testing, DevOps is no longer a bottleneck. The automated testing tools help to remove the bottleneck, thereby, making the implementation process an easy and hassle-free one.
- Make Better use of 508 Compliance Experts: It is difficult to find 508 compliance experts. So, when you find them it is better to make proper use of their skill. Thus, ask your developers to use automated accessibility testing tools to get rid of any issues faced in the initial round of testing, instead of depending on the 508 Compliance experts.
- Helps Monitor Changes In A Continuous Fashion: When the developer opts for the automated testing tool, it is possible to monitor changes in a continuous fashion, thereby, ensuring that the production is carried out as per schedule.
There are many IT organizations offering automated Accessibility Testing Services. If your company has not resorted to accessibility testing, it is time that they do so.