Automated testing in Access Assistant

NOTE to Assistive Technology Users: Access Assistant can be opened with the hotkey combination Ctr+Shift+Space.

On this page:

• Test a page
• Test across tabs
• Evaluate guided automatics
• Retest a page

Note that Access Assistant doesn't support Single Page Applications.

Test a page

Automated testing is completed automatically when opening a module in the toolbar. To initiate automated testing of a page, simply capture the page as a module then select the module link in the toolbar. The module will be tested at that time, and violations will be displayed on the subsequent screen in the "Confirmed Violations" tab. This tab will display the total number of violations in parentheses after the tab title.

If changes have made to a page that was previously tested, the page can be retested to update the violations in the report. Note that retesting is only possible for pages. Nodes that have been captured as modules cannot be retested at this time (but will be possible in a future release).

When testing a page, Access Assistant will display two categories of test results:

1. Automatics: These are violations that are found via fully automatic tests.
2. Guided Automatics: These are potential violations that will be in a "Needs Review" state, requiring a tester to evaluate them and determine whether they should be passed or failed.

Once you've tested, you can also highlight the element on the page which has the issue by choosing the 'edit' (visually, it looks like a pencil icon) icon; this will shift focus to the element and highlight it for you. 

Test across tabs

Access Assistant for Chrome makes optional use of the all_urls permission to enable testing of different domains without requiring the user to close the extension and relaunch it. This applies in two scenarios -- when users navigate between tabs and when users test pages containing one or more iframes containing content from a different domain than the parent page. 

When the extension attempts to test content in one of the above-mentioned scenarios, the user will receive an alert indicating that the all_urls permission will be used to enable the access necessary to test the page. The user must accept the permission in order to continue testing. Note that this will only be necessary when using Access Assistant for Chrome. Users will be able to test content in different domains, across tabs or within iframes, with the Firefox and Edge extensions, without any additional actions as described above.

Evaluate guided automatics

When a module is opened, the tester must select the "Needs Review" tab to view all guided automatics that require evaluation. The tab will display the total number of violation candidates that need review in parentheses after the tab title. For detailed instructions on evaluating guided automatics, review the "Evaluate guided automatics in Access Assistant" article.

Retest a page

Users have two options when retesting a page:

1. Overwriting all existing test results
2. Adding new violations to existing test results

To retest a page:

1. Open the module in Access Assistant.
2. Select one of the two retest button menu options:
   
   1. Add
   2. Overwrite