Toward an integration of Web accessibility into testing processes

Editor's Notes

• #2: Good afternoon I'm Mary Sanchez. I apologize because I'm not confident in English. (Maybe, I won’t be able to understand you, when you ask me questions. Please, Be Patient with me. Thank you.) I will present the work: “Toward an integration of Web accessibility into testing processes”. It has been made in conjunction with Lourdes Moreno, from the University Carlos III of Madrid, Spain Now, I am going to pass to presentation
• #3: Whilst accessibility is widely agreed as an essential requirement for promoting universal access of information, many web sites still fail to provide accessible content. The goal of equal accessibility will not be easy to attain. A way to ensure the achievement of objectives in each phase of the development process is to apply a testing process. In fact, testing is an essential activity in software industry because it allows one to control and improve the quality of the software product. The goal of testing Internet-based applications is no different from that of traditional applications. We need to uncover errors in the application before deploying it to the internet. However, compared with traditional software, web applications have many special properties, such as accessibility. Therefore, additional efforts are needed in web testing The purpose of the present study is to identify if there is a well-defined test process that it ensures the web accessibility development.
• #4: Nowadays, although there are many techniques for supporting the development of accessible web applications, many developers are not aware of them and many organizations do not properly apply them In fact, web developers mostly were considering accessibility at the end of the development process, often the last “check” before they published the website. Moreover, despite there are a lot of accessibility documentation addressed to assess, it is necessary to develop further training programs and helpful resources to support evaluators such as the documentation provided by the W3C Here, the software testing process can be helpful.
• #5: In today’s software development industry, software testing is one of the most important processes, because it allows one to ensure the quality of software products. The most visible part of testing is test execution. But to be effective and efficient, test plans should also include time to be spent on planning the test, designing test cases, preparing for execution and evaluating results. Moreover, proper alignment between the testing processes and other processes in the life-cycle is critical for success;. this is especially true at key interfaces and hand-offs, such as: Requirements engineering and management, project management, configuration and change management, software development and maintenance, technical support, and technical documentation.
• #6: Additionally, due of lack of professionals in software testing, several organizations that offer certifications have emerged, such as: Global QA, QAI Global Institute and International Software Testing Qualification Board
• #7: ISTQB was founded in November 2002. It is an organization that provides a fundamental test process and a scheme for certifying software testers. These syllabuses provide the knowledge that testers require in order to carry out testing activities at different expertise levels, along with the time needed to acquire it. According to its Website, the ISTQB certification is becoming popular in the global scale, having over 265,000 certifications issued (as of September 2012). As of March 2012, ISTQB consists of 46 member boards worldwide representing more than 70 countries. The Spanish Software Testing Qualification Board (SSTQB) is the Spain national branch of the ISTQB.
• #8: With this motivation, On the one hand, after reviewing several studies about research on web accessibility we can say that none explicitly discloses a testing process On the other hand, The ISTQB syllabus provides a fundamental test process: planning and control; analysis and design; implementation and execution; evaluating exit criteria and reporting; and test closure activities. Tailoring these main activities within the context of the system and the project is usually required. Here, this test process considers aspects that could be integrated into the web application development.
• #9: Due to the scope of this work, a proof of concept for the test process has been developed for the requirements phase of Accessibility Development Lifecycle proposed by Microsoft. The accessibility development lifecycle defines how accessibility fits into each stage of the development cycle—requirements, design, implementation, verification, and release.
• #10: Test process on the requirements phase of accessibility development lifecycle In this figure shows the test process proposed to include technology accessibility standards within the requirement stages of the development lifecycle. Note that the test plan should be considered as another element in the development lifecycle such as “Feature List”. Thereby, the test process proposed is also closely related with the accessibility development lifecycle, which it is shown below. Planning and Control imply preparing the test to incorporate technology accessibility standards. Accordingly, in this phase, a test strategy is reviewed. Analysis and design suggest deciding what should be automated, to what degree and how the accessibility technology standards are incorporated into exit criteria. Implementation and execution mean creating the test specification to accessibility technology standards.
• #11: After, Evaluating exit criteria and reporting imply the verification and validation of the incorporation of accessibility technology standards within the plan. Test closure activities involve the execution of test summary reports based on the information gathered during testing and lessons learned. Some activities may be seen obvious to be carried out by many development teams; however, testing processes should be created to ensure that they have been executed and controlled with in order to obtain the desired results as are expected. Therefore, it is necessary to define each test process activity according to the activities of the development cycle in order to achieve better product quality.
• #12: To conclude, This study recognizes that retrofitting the product for accessibility can be extremely costly and sometimes impossible because part of the accessibility development requires attention at the early stages of the development lifecycle models. Furthermore, different development lifecycle models need contrasting approaches to test Web accessibility. Today most people in the software business agree that testing is important, but there is still a very diverse understanding of what testing is all about and what its value is. Hence, testing is always done differently in different contexts and domain expertise is important in software testing because the person who has domain knowledge can test the application better than others. Thus, accessibility and testing should be integrated from the beginning of the product development cycle, when the application or product is in the planning or design phase. The panorama obtained from this study is key to guide further research about test processes on web accessibility beyond evaluations tools and assistive technology such as BS 8878 has done.
• #13: Thank you for your attention Maybe, I can't understand you, when you ask me. Please, Be Patient with me. Thank you.