Where should I implement testing SDKs in the software development life cycle?

The Level Access testing SDKs allow you to integrate accessibility checks into your test automation throughout the software development life cycle (SDLC). There are three places in the SDLC where it's most common to have test automation:

• Local to the developer
• Pull request review
• Build process

Within a given test script, it's best practice to run an accessibility check whenever the user interface has changed significantly. At a high level, there are two primary approaches to adding accessibility scans within a test script. The prescriptive approach, where you can test accessibility at specific locations in a test script or the global approach, where you can use Before/After functions.

Prescriptive approach:

• Provide focused test results and data.
• Allow you to easily identify the location of a bug.
• Can decrease the bug to fix timeline.
• Slight increase in time and effort required to integrate the SDK into your test automation infrastructure.

Some testing frameworks offer BeforeEach/AfterEach or BeforeAll/AfterAll functions, where you can automatically invoke accessibility checks before or after every test case within the project without having to code the scans at the desired scan points.

Accessibility checks using Before/After functions:

Global approach:

• Decrease in time and effort required to integrate the SDK into your test automation infrastructure.
• Can result in scans run too frequently or duplicate data.
• Can make it harder to identify the location of an accessibility bug.
• Can increase the bug to fix timeline.

Each approach has benefits and disadvantages that you should assess in consideration with your teams capacity, tech stack, and tool chain for testing and quality control.