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ANKITA SAXENA: Accessibility testing
is an essential part of app development.
It helps you identify bugs which can otherwise
lead to a bad experience for users with disabilities.
In this episode, we'll specifically
discuss accessibility testing at the pre-launch stage
of your app.
Google Play's pre-launch report comes
in handy here to identify the accessibility
issues in your app.
Pre-launch report is the report generated
when an APK is uploaded to the release channel
using Play Console.
PLR finds and lists down issues in your app
by testing it on a wide range of devices
before it can affect the users.
You can see three different pages in a pre-launch report.
The Overview page provides a summary
of any unique errors, warnings, minor issues found
during testing, grouped into four categories-- stability,
performance, accessibility, and security and trust.
We'll specifically discussed the accessibility section
in this video.
The details for other sections can
be checked in the document linked in the description.
The Detail section shows a detailed report
for each of the four categories summarized in overview.
It also includes a screenshots tab,
which includes screenshots of your app
across different devices.
The Settings section can be used to customize
your pre-launch report and make the findings more
relevant to your app.
You can provide test account credentials
if your app is behind the login screen, entry
points for the app to be crawled,
languages for the app to be tested in,
and additional robust scripts to control
how the app is scrolled.
To get into more details about this section,
check the document link in the description.
There is no setup required for accessibility testing.
Every APK that is uploaded to the open, closed, or internal
tracks is automatically tested.
And the accessibility findings are included in the PLR.
The accessibility findings from the devices
are aggregated, separated into four categories,
clustered by similar features, and ranked by severity.
Then all of that information is shown within the APK's
pre-launch report.
The user is first shown a summary.
But they can drill down into the details
of what each problem is, where it appears,
and what they can do to fix it.
The Summary page includes the number of unique accessibility
issues grouped by severity of finding
and the type of accessibility issue.
The severities fall in three categories-- errors denoted
by a red icon, warnings denoted by a yellow icon, minor issue
denoted by a blue icon.
If there are no issues detected by PLR,
you'll see a green check.
The type of accessibility issues fall in four categories.
Content labeling issues determine
whether elements have content labels for the screen readers
to convey the meaning of the element.
Touch target size issues determine
whether elements in your app meet the recommended target
size.
Implementation-based issues are layout issues
which can affect users with motor impairments.
Low contrast issues determine whether colors in your app
have low contrast, which can make them harder to be viewed.
The detailed description for all these types
can be found in the documents linked
in the video description.
Tests are not specifically done on a device.
Switch to dark mode or nighttime to catch low contrast issues
there as well.
You can click on the arrow icon in order of accessibility
finding to view details of the specific category and severity
corresponding to that rule.
The Details page lists down all the findings with screenshots.
Each category is a heading with a number of unique issues
per severity level.
Each unique issue is shown with a screenshot,
along with the total number of issues in the same category.
Screenshots are clustered to avoid confusion.
And you can view all screenshots of a given cluster
by clicking on the sample screenshot attached
with the issue.
The element for which issue is detected
is highlighted in a red box in the screenshot.
Clicking on a screenshot cluster shows
more details about the issue, which
include the specifications of the device on which
the screenshot was taken, like the information about device
model, operating system, screen sizes, screen
densities, and languages.
It also shows the path of the element for which the issue is
detected, recommendations on how you can fix the issue,
and more examples which have similar issue.
These findings and recommendations
can be used to drag down the faulty elements and fix them.
You can retrigger a new run of PLR
by uploading a fresh APK after fixing the issues
and confirming that the findings do not reappear.
The app version appears in the Overview section,
and you can choose a version for viewing
the corresponding report.
However, it should be kept in mind
that all automated accessibility testing, this is
meant to complement and not replace
usability testing with real users with a variety
of accessibility needs.
Thanks for watching.
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