Quality engineering serves many roles in the software development life cycle: it accelerates product development, improves the customer experience, and supports DevOps adoption. But perhaps most importantly, quality engineering allows software testing teams to ask bigger questions about product quality. Today, mabl is giving quality teams another powerful solution to answer those bigger questions: automated accessibility tests that can be embedded into development pipelines.
Currently in beta, the new feature empowers software teams to automatically identify and resolve accessibility issues earlier in development as part of their end-to-end testing efforts, before they impact end users.
Accessibility is at the Forefront of Quality Concerns, But the End of Development
Accessibility is an essential part of building applications and websites that are useful for all consumers. An estimated 15% of the global population lives with some form of disability, while vision impairment alone is one of the most common health issues in the United States, making it clear that accessible digital experiences need to be the norm, not the exception.
The post-2020 shift to digital-first experiences has made this need particularly acute, prompting major technology companies like Twitter to introduce major accessibility updates and the U.S. Department of Justice to issue new guidance on web accessibility. It’s clear that the established methods for managing accessibility are not enough for an inclusive digital world.
Despite the momentum behind the drive to make accessibility a priority in software development, actually delivering remains challenging. The established method for ensuring accessibility - periodic audits of customer-facing products - is nowhere near iterable enough to keep up with agile development. If DevOps teams are updating their product on a weekly or daily basis, they need to be able to run accessibility checks at the same pace.
Low-Code Automated Accessibility Checks Help Shift Accessibility to the Left
Mabl’s new automated accessibility testing capabilities enable quality teams to supplement post-production audits with embedded checks earlier in development that ensure accessibility before new products and features reach the customer.
Using mabl’s low-code UI, quality engineering teams can now easily embed automated accessibility checks into their delivery pipelines. Powered by axe-core, a popular engine for accessibility testing, accessibility checks are fully integrated into mabl’s low-code test automation solution for web, email, PDF, and mobile web testing. Embedding accessibility testing with actionable reporting into the development pipeline makes it easier than ever for software teams to continuously verify adherence to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) - versions 2.0 and 2.1.
When accessibility testing is part of routine end-to-end tests, it’s much easier to shift it to the left, making it possible to resolve accessibility issues in development. Doing so integrates accessibility into an organization’s broader culture of quality - allowing them to prioritize accessibility with the same urgency as consumers.
Setting the Stage for More Accessible Digital Experiences
More organizations are embracing quality engineering to deliver delightful digital experiences at the speed of DevOps. In doing so, they’re asking bigger questions about what quality means to all customers and building software testing strategies that deliver on that vision. Automated accessibility testing with mabl enables quality teams to embed accessibility into their development pipelines and create inclusive digital experiences for everyone.
Discover how your team can get started with automated accessibility testing at our upcoming live webinar on Wednesday, May 18th. Product Marketing Lead Fernando Mattos will show you how to maximize the value of your automated end-to-end tests by incorporating accessibility test steps, our best practices for configuring tests, and how to harness the power of machine intelligence with mabl’s reporting features. Friend of mabl SmugMug will also give a behind the scenes overview of their experience with accessibility testing, and how it has helped them deliver dynamic user experiences for all customers. Register today!
