Outsourcing Accessibility Testing

“If you want your website to be accessible there are two things you absolutely have to do:

• Specify that accessibility is essential in your requirements definition.
• Arrange that the site is tested for accessibility.

The first requires a bit more than just saying “the site must be accessible” but there are lots of examples of such requirements and people who can help you write them.

However, the second is much more difficult because:

• Defining what needs to be tested is complex: what disabilities, what functions, what assistive technology, what browsers.
• There are a variety of ways to do the testing: automated testing, desk checking by people who understand accessibility, testing by people with a variety of disabilities, testing by end-users.
• The testing cannot be done solely by the developers because a developer is unlikely to have a sufficiently detailed understanding of the issues to test adequately.

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Read the full article at IT Director and get tips to improve your web site’s accessibility.