Accessibility Testing

Table of Contents

• Overview
• When to Use
• Quick Start
• Reference Guides
• Best Practices

Overview

Accessibility testing ensures web applications are usable by people with disabilities, including those using screen readers, keyboard navigation, or other assistive technologies. It validates compliance with WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) and identifies barriers to accessibility.

When to Use

• Validating WCAG 2.1/2.2 compliance
• Testing keyboard navigation
• Verifying screen reader compatibility
• Testing color contrast ratios
• Validating ARIA attributes
• Testing form accessibility
• Ensuring focus management
• Testing with assistive technologies

Quick Start

Minimal working example:

// tests/accessibility/homepage.a11y.test.ts
import { test, expect } from "@playwright/test";
import AxeBuilder from "@axe-core/playwright";

test.describe("Homepage Accessibility", () => {
  test("should not have any automatically detectable WCAG A or AA violations", async ({
    page,
  }) => {
    await page.goto("/");

    const accessibilityScanResults = await new AxeBuilder({ page })
      .withTags(["wcag2a", "wcag2aa", "wcag21a", "wcag21aa"])
      .analyze();

    expect(accessibilityScanResults.violations).toEqual([]);
  });

  test("navigation should be accessible", async ({ page }) => {
    await page.goto("/");

    const results = await new AxeBuilder({ page }).include("nav").analyze();

    expect(results.violations).toEqual([]);
  });

// ... (see reference guides for full implementation)

Reference Guides

Detailed implementations in the references/ directory:

Guide	Contents
axe-core with Playwright	axe-core with Playwright
Keyboard Navigation Testing	Keyboard Navigation Testing
ARIA Testing	ARIA Testing
Jest with jest-axe	Jest with jest-axe
Cypress Accessibility Testing	Cypress Accessibility Testing
Python with Selenium and axe	Python with Selenium and axe

Best Practices

✅ DO

• Test with real assistive technologies
• Include keyboard-only users
• Test color contrast
• Use semantic HTML
• Provide text alternatives
• Test with screen readers
• Run automated tests in CI
• Follow WCAG 2.1 AA standards

❌ DON'T

• Rely only on automated tests (they catch ~30-40% of issues)
• Use color alone to convey information
• Skip keyboard navigation testing
• Forget focus management in dynamic content
• Use div/span for interactive elements
• Hide focusable content with display:none
• Ignore ARIA best practices
• Skip manual testing