In the world of accessibility, automated testing is helpful, but unfeeling. It doesn't experience things—humans do.
Automated testing doesn't experience the following:
- How it feels to tab through 20 navigation items before getting to the content you came for
- What it's like to notice a message flash at the top of the page but not get to read it before it disappears
- Why it's frustrating to hear a long label name for a form control before finally hearing its role
- How annoying it is to have to scroll both horizontally and vertically to read a block of content
- How confusing it can be to see large blocks of text without any visual reassurance of meaning
- How upsetting it is to see a video on a page and not find a transcript
- Why it's annoying to read out a long voice command to click a button because it has a long aria-label
- How isolating it is to not know which content on a page is clickable by looking at it because nothing is underlined
That's not all. There's even more. Rest assured, whenever I think of other examples, I'll add them to the list.
Feel free to find me on social media or email me if you think of a scenario that should be added.