Mobile Testing
Introduction
The ICT Accessibility Testing Symposium has developed a methodology for evaluating the accessibility of mobile websites and native apps. These documents are an amalgamation of accepted mobile site accessibility testing standards from around the world, including additional developments from the ICT Accessibility Testing Symposium’s Mobile Site Sub-Committee.
WCAG2 success criteria are applicable to mobile sites and native apps; however, not all aspects of mobile site or native app accessibility are specifically covered by WCAG2. It is the opinion of this committee that merely conforming to WCAG2 (or WCAG 2.1) does not provide for a fully accessible experience for users with disabilities.
Please note that this methodology does not include those issues already included in WCAG2, however does include issues identified in WCAG2.1. This guide was written with the intent to clarify the unique needs of users with disabilities who use mobile websites and native apps and to raise the bar for the web development community. This is a work-in-progress, and, as such, we do not make a claim that conforming to these requirements will ensure that your mobile site is fully accessible to all users.
Webinars
To learn more about these methodologies, you can watch some of our CEO’s presentations. Gian Wild spoke on Mobile Accessibility: Building and Testing Accessible Mobile Sites and Native Apps (90 minutes) for WordPress Accessibility Meetup and on Mobile Accessibility: Building Accessible Mobile Sites (50 minutes) for Drupal4Gov.
Blog posts
We have recently created blog posts of the five steps of the mobile methodology and the critical issues.
A note on WCAG2.1
The Committee decided that it was important to also include issues added in WCAG2.1 so that testers who were testing against WCAG2 would also benefit from the mobile-related errors published in WCAG2.1. This methodology is more stringent than WCAG2 and WCAG2.1 in some areas, and these are detailed in the Test Cases documents.
A note on WCAG2.2
We have not yet incorporated WCAG2.2 into these guidelines.
Mobile sites versus native apps
There is a great difference between mobile sites and native apps – native apps utilize a completely different codebase. Therefore, the ICT Accessibility Testing Symposium has decided to separate the native app methodology from the mobile site testing methodology.
A note on hybrid native apps
Hybrid mobile apps consist of both HTML and native code. The HTML may be included as a specific page within an application, or within a specific container. When testing a hybrid app, you will need to use this methodology and the Mobile Site Accessibility Testing Methodology.
The Methodologies
Unfortunately, when developing WCAG2, the W3C WCAG Working Group did not envision the current world where mobile is almost ubiquitous. For example, on a mobile device there is no continual access to a keyboard (unless someone is using it as an add-on to the device – or using a Blackberry Classic!). WCAG2 requires that all content be accessible to the keyboard interface, but it does not require that all content be accessible to a mouse or to a touchscreen user, which is essential on a mobile device. WCAG2.1 does include some mobile accessibility requirements but doesn’t go far enough.
Gian Wild chaired the Mobile Site Sub-Committee to develop a set of Mobile Site Testing Guidelines that are available under Creative Commons. These documents are an amalgamation of accepted mobile site accessibility testing standards from around the world, including additional developments from the ICT Accessibility Testing Symposium’s Mobile Site Sub-Committee. These guidelines are meant to be used in conjunction with WCAG2 (and WCAG2.1) to ensure that sites are accessible to people with disabilities using mobile and tablet devices. There are two sets of documents: one for Mobile Sites and one for Native Apps.
Mobile Site Testing Methodology Overview
There are two overview documents:
- Mobile Site Accessibility Testing Methodology (Word, 5.48 MB)
- About Mobile Site Testing – Devices, assistive technologies, site types, variations of a page and capturing errors (Word, 23.4 MB)
There are three sets of test cases documents, which detail how to test a particular requirement in the methodology, why it is important and example passes of the requirement:
- Mobile Site Accessibility Testing Methodology – Critical Test Cases (Word, 22.3 MB)
- Mobile Site Accessibility Testing Methodology – Test Cases (Word, 90.77 MB)
- Mobile Site Accessibility Testing Methodology – Test cases for assistive technologies and mobile features (Word, 48.14 MB)
Native App Testing Methodology Overview
There are two overview documents:
- Native App Accessibility Testing Methodology (Word, 2.05 MB)
- About Native App Testing – Devices, assistive technologies and capturing errors (Word, 2.06 MB)
There are three sets of test cases documents, which detail how to test a particular requirement in the methodology, why it is important and example passes of the requirement: