Testaro: Efficient Ensemble Testing for Web Accessibility

TL;DR

Testaro is an open-source tool that efficiently combines multiple web accessibility testing tools into a unified framework, enabling comprehensive detection of accessibility issues in a streamlined manner.

Contribution

It introduces a novel ensemble testing package that integrates eight different tools into a single, easy-to-use system for improved web accessibility compliance testing.

Findings

Detects more accessibility issues than individual tools

Provides unified reports from multiple testing tools

Enables quick setup and execution within 5 minutes

Abstract

As automated web accessibility testing tools become enriched with new and improved tests, it can be impractical to leverage those advances. Each tool offers unique benefits, but effectively using multiple tools would require integrating them into a uniform testing and reporting scheme. Such integration is complex, because tools vary in what they try to detect, what they actually detect, and how they classify, describe, and report defects. Consequently, testers typically use only one tool. Testaro is a novel open-source NPM package that checks compliance with about 650 rules defined by an ensemble of 8 tools: alfa, Axe, Equal Access, HTML CodeSniffer, Nu Html Checker, QualWeb, Testaro, and WAVE. Attendees at the demonstration will, within 5 minutes, create jobs for Testaro, run them, and generate unified reports documenting more accessibility issues than any single tool can discover.