A Brief Survey of Current Software Engineering Practices in Continuous Integration and Automated Accessibility Testing

TL;DR

This paper surveys current practices in integrating accessibility testing within continuous integration in software engineering, highlighting challenges and proposing steps for agile teams to improve accessibility through CI.

Contribution

It provides a mapping of existing efforts and hurdles in CI-based accessibility testing, and suggests practical steps for agile teams to adopt and visualize these practices.

Findings

Limited adoption of accessibility testing in CI workflows

Identified hurdles include lack of training and tooling

Proposed visualization methods for CI accessibility processes

Abstract

It's long been accepted that continuous integration (CI) in software engineering increases the code quality of enterprise projects when adhered to by it's practitioners. But is any of that effort to increase code quality and velocity directed towards improving software accessibility accommodations? What are the potential benefits quoted in literature? Does it fit with the modern agile way that teams operate in most enterprises? This paper attempts to map the current scene of the software engineering effort spent on improving accessibility via continuous integration and it's hurdles to adoption as quoted by researchers. We also try to explore steps that agile teams may take to train members on how to implement accessibility testing and introduce key diagrams to visualize processes to implement CI based accessibility testing procedures in the software development lifecycle.