Page Accessibility Validation

Accessible web pages are web pages that are designed in a way that people with disabilities or impairments can use them. Most US and EU organizations require accessibility compliance.

Using the Validate page accessibility step, you can check the accessibility level of your web page, while identifying elements in your web page that could have been made accessible, but were not. The accessibility checks are based on rules, which are listed here: https://github.com/dequelabs/axe-core/blob/develop/doc/rule-descriptions.md).

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This is a pro feature

This is a pro feature only open to projects on our professional plan. To learn more about our professional plan, click here.

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The Validate page accessibility step feature is only available when using the Chrome browser.

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Accessibility Validation Support

Testim Accessibility steps use one of the leading accessibility libraries, Axe Core by Deque. Note that pure accessibility violations detected within the Accessibility step are primarily related to your application code. As such, addressing these specific issues falls outside the scope of Testim's support. If you encounter challenges in rectifying accessibility violations through code fixes, we advise you to seek assistance from Deque Axe-Core issues page. As accessibility experts, they can provide specialized guidance and solutions to address these issues effectively.

Adding a Validate page accessibility step

The Validate page accessibility step should be placed in the part of your test where the desired page to be tested is currently open in the AUT. If your test involves navigating to more than one page, be sure that the step is placed in the testing sequence where the desired page is open.

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Steps created before Jan 2022 are not shared. To make them shared, please record them again.

To add a Validate page accessibility step:

1. Hover over the (arrow symbol) where you want to add the step.

The action options are displayed.

2. Click on the Toggle Breakpoint button.

3. Click on the Run test button to run the test until the breakpoint.

4. Hover over the (arrow symbol) again and click on the “M” (Testim predefined steps).
   The Predefined steps menu opens.

5. Click on Validations.
   The Validations menu expands.

6. Scroll down through the menu and select Validate page accessibility.

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Alternatively, you can use the search box at the top of the menu to search for Validate page accessibility.

A Validate page accessibility step is added in the Editor.

7. Hover over the newly created step, and click on the Show Properties () icon.

The Properties panel opens on the right-hand side.

8. Fill in the properties as described below.

• Description – The description of the step. (Default = Page accessibility validation)
• Fail test from impact level – The minimal impact level that will fail the test. Options are: Critical, Serious, Moderate, and Minor. (Default = Minor) The impact levels of the different rules are shown in the table below.
• Run only specific tags – Click in this field and choose the protocols you wish to test from the dropdown options available. See table below. By default all tags are selected.
• Exclude specific rule IDs – If you wish to exclude specific rule IDs, select them from the list. In addition if you wish to only check specific rule IDs, you can select all and then un-select the ones you would like to test.
• When this step fails – Specify what to do if the step fails.
• When to run step – Specify conditions for when to run the step. For more info, see Conditions.
• Override timeout – Allows you to override the default time lapse setting which causes Testim to register a fail for a test step, and specify a different time lapse value (in milliseconds).

9. Click on the Toggle Breakpoint button after the Validation step to remove the breakpoint.
   When the test is run, the accessibility level of your page will be checked against the parameters you set. If accessibility violations are found and the step fails, you can view the accessibility report to see detailed results.

Viewing the page accessibility results

After a test with a Validate page accessibility step is run, if accessibility violations are found, a Step Failed: Accessibility violations were found error message is shown, and you can view detailed accessibility violation results.

To view the page accessibility results:

1. Hover over the failed Validate page accessibility step, and click on the Show Properties () icon.

The Properties panel opens on the right-hand side.

2. In the Properties panel, click the Check here for more details link.

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Alternatively, in the error panel, you can click on the Accessibility report link.

The Accessibility Result window is shown (based on the impact level you chose previously), displaying a list of accessibility issues, the number of occurrences that were found, and their impact levels.

If you would like to show the accessibility issues found based on all of the impact levels, click the All impact level toggle.

3. If you would like to download the results as a CSV file, click the download icon. (The CSV file includes the results of all of the accessibility tests, including those that passed.)

4. Click the down arrow next to any of the results to show the following detailed information: Description, How To Fix The Problem, and Element CSS Selector.

5. If more than one occurrence of an accessibility issue was found, click the arrows in the Element CSS Selector section to show the different instances of the issue.

Rules Descriptions

Testim uses the following library to check the element accessibility level: https://github.com/dequelabs/axe-core/blob/develop/doc/rule-descriptions.md. Each rule has an associated impact level (e.g. Critical, Serious, Moderate, or Minor) and associated tags. When configuring the accessibility check, you can limit the check to certain tags and/or impact levels.