Automated accessibility testing: A complete guide for QA teams

Digital inclusion is no longer a “nice-to-have” feature in the modern landscape of technology; it’s a core requirement for any software. Today, over one billion people worldwide live with some form of disability.

This accounts for nearly 17% of the global population. For these users, digital barriers can block access to critical services like healthcare, as well as opportunities like jobs and education.

QA teams often view accessibility as a final hurdle. This mindset usually leads to slow releases and high costs.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Automated accessibility testing is not only a mature solution, but it’s very powerful when enhanced with AI and surprisingly easy to implement.

Accessibility testing will allow your team to catch errors early, like missing image descriptions or poor color contrast, and ensure that everyone can use your product effectively.

In this guide, we’ll explore how to build a modern accessibility program using automation and AI.

Before we jump into the meat of the subject, however, let’s make sure we’re all on the same page. Because accessibility is about a lot more than just “fixing” a site; it’s about universal design.

What is accessibility testing?

TL;DR: Accessibility testing evaluates whether a digital product is usable by people with visual, auditory, motor, or cognitive impairments, based on WCAG standards and the POUR principles.

In a nutshell, accessibility testing is the process of evaluating a digital product to ensure people with visual, auditory, motor, or cognitive impairments can use it. Additionally, accessibility testing is a subset of usability testing that focuses specifically on inclusion.

To do this well, we must think about the different ways people interact with technology. Some users might not be able to use a mouse. Others might rely on high-contrast modes for reading or captions for video.

To measure success, we use the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). These are the international standards for digital inclusion. WCAG is built on four core principles. We call these the POUR principles.

Perceivable

Users must be able to recognize and use information regardless of the senses they rely on. This includes high color contrast (at least 4.5:1 for normal text) and descriptive alt text for images.

Operable

The interface must be navigable via various inputs. A user should be able to complete a checkout flow using only a keyboard or voice commands.

Understandable

Content must be predictable and readable. This means using plain language and providing clear, text-based error messages that explain how to fix a problem.

Robust

The application must remain compatible as technology evolves. It should play nicely with current and future assistive technologies like screen readers or braille displays.

The diverse scope of testing

When we test for accessibility, we look at several distinct usability areas. Each category requires a different approach.

Assistive technology refers to any software or hardware that helps people with disabilities interact with technology. Examples include screen readers like NVDA or JAWS. They also include magnifiers, voice command software, and specialized keyboards.

Our job in QA is to make sure our code plays nicely with these tools. If we use the right HTML tags, the assistive technology knows exactly what to do. On the contrary, if we use “divs” for everything, the technology gets lost.

The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect.

Why is accessibility testing important?

TL;DR: Accessibility testing matters because it promotes inclusion, reduces legal risk under regulations like the ADA, and improves business outcomes such as market reach and SEO performance.

There are three major reasons to prioritize accessibility: it’s the right thing to do, the law often requires it, and it’s just good business.

At its heart, accessibility is about people. Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, once said: “The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect.”

When we design for the most vulnerable users, we make the experience better for everyone. For example, captions help someone who is deaf, but they also help a student watching a video in a quiet library.

Furthermore, many companies overlook the “disability market.” This group controls over trillions in disposable income globally. By making your product accessible, you can increase your reach significantly.

Finally, accessibility and SEO go hand-in-hand. Search engine crawlers operate very much like blind users. They cannot “see” images or videos.

They rely on alt text, transcripts, and logical heading structures to understand your page. An accessible site is an organized site. This leads to higher keyword rankings and more organic traffic.

What is automation best suited for?

Automated tools are incredibly efficient at finding “low-hanging fruit.” They scan the Document Object Model (DOM) of your page to find code that breaks specific rules.

Tools like the axe-core engine can identify most of the WCAG issues. Some experts suggest the range is between 50% and 80%, depending on the complexity of the site. Automation is great at detecting:

• Missing alt text for images.
• Incorrect color contrast ratios.
• Form inputs without labels.
• Empty buttons or links.
• Missing page titles.

However, machines are not good at understanding context. They can tell you if an image has alt text, but they cannot tell you if that text is helpful. Automation also struggles with the following:

• Logical reading order for screen readers.
• Complex keyboard navigation patterns.
• Whether a video transcript is accurate.
• Predictability of menus and navigation.

Because of these limits, a hybrid approach is always recommended. This combines automated scans for speed with manual audits for depth. Manual testing should include people with actual disabilities to ensure the experience is truly usable.

If empathy and money are not enough, legal risks usually get attention.

The global legal landscape

If empathy and money are not enough, legal risks usually get attention. Accessibility lawsuits are on the rise globally. In the United States, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) has become a primary driver for digital compliance.

In April 2024, the DOJ issued a major final rule. It mandates that state and local governments must meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA standards.

Top accessibility testing tools

Choosing the right tool depends on your team’s technical skills and current workflow. Some tools are built for developers, while others are designed for manual testers or business users.

Codeless automation refers to testing tools that allow users to create automated test cases without writing a single line of code.

Tricentis Tosca is a standout codeless tool for large teams. It allows you to add accessibility checks to your existing functional tests.

This “shift-left” approach catches issues during development rather than after launch. It also provides detailed reports that classify issues by severity.

Let’s explore how to get started with Tosca.

Starting an accessibility program can feel overwhelming. The key is to integrate it slowly into your existing quality assurance (QA) pipeline.

How to get started with automation: A step-by-step guide with Tricentis Tosca

TL;DR: Set up Tosca, run accessibility scans as part of your tests, review severity results, and integrate the checks into your CI/CD pipeline.

Starting an accessibility program can feel overwhelming. The key is to integrate it slowly into your existing quality assurance (QA) pipeline.

Choosing your automated accessibility tool

The good news is that most modern accessibility testing tools are powered by the same underlying engine, axe-core, so the core logic is consistent across platforms. What differs is how each tool fits into your team’s existing workflow.

Here are the most common options:

1. Axe DevTools (Deque)

A browser extension and API-based tool that integrates directly into unit and end-to-end frameworks like Jest, Playwright, and Cypress. It’s a strong choice for developer-led testing and works well in JavaScript-heavy stacks.

2. Selenium with axe

For teams on legacy Selenium-based frameworks, the axe-selenium integrations for Java, Python, and C# make it possible to bolt accessibility checks into existing regression suites without rebuilding them.

3. Tricentis Tosca

A strong fit for enterprise QA teams who rely on codeless, model-based testing. Tosca integrates axe-core directly into its test framework, allowing accessibility audits to run as part of standard regression portfolios without requiring engineering involvement.

Tricentis Tosca is uniquely positioned for enterprise accessibility because it integrates directly with the axe-core engine—the world’s most trusted accessibility rules library. This allows QA teams to run audits as part of their standard regression portfolio.

Let’s walk through a basic implementation of Tosca for accessibility testing for a website.

1. Initialize the environment

Before running an audit, you must first prepare your Tosca Commander workspace. Every accessibility test case requires a target browser to be defined.

1. Create a New TestCase: In Tosca Commander, right-click your folder and select Create TestCase.
2. Add Test Configuration Parameters (TCPs):
   1. Right-click your TestCase and select Create Test configuration parameter.
   2. Name the parameter `Browser` and set its value to your target (e.g., Chrome, Edge, or Firefox).
   3. (Optional) Add `AccessibilityFastMode` and set it to `True`. This optimizes performance by ignoring passed checks and focusing only on failures, which is ideal for large, complex pages.

2. Choose your testing methodology

Tosca offers two primary ways to automate accessibility: auditing a specific page or integrating checks into your existing functional test steps.

Option A: Auditing a specific webpage

This is best for landing pages, login screens, or high-traffic URLs that need a baseline scan.

1. Use the Standard Module: Navigate to the

   Standard.tce

   subset and locate the module Check Webpage Accessibility.
2. Drag and Drop: Move this module into your TestCase.
3. Configure Search Criteria:
   1. In the TestStep, fill out the Search Criteria.
   2. You can use

      Title

      (e.g.,

      *Tricentis*

      ) or

      'Url'

      (e.g.,

      https://support-hub.tricentis.com/

      ) to tell Tosca which windows to scan.

4. Update TCP: Add the TCP

RunAccessibilityAnalysis

and set its value to

Specific Webpage

.

Option B: Integrating with regression tests (shift-left)

This is the most powerful method. It tells Tosca to scan the page automatically every time a tester interacts with a field.

1. Configure the Analysis Trigger: Add the TCP `RunAccessibilityAnalysis`.
2. Set the Value:
   1. Before Inputs: Scans the page before data is entered into a field.
   2. After Inputs: Scans the page after data is entered, which is vital for catching errors that appear after a user clicks “Submit”.
3. Adjust Reporting: Set the TCP `ReportSuccessfulExecutionOf` to `TestStepValues – All`. This ensures that even if the accessibility scan passes, it’s documented in your logs.

3. Execute and analyze

Once your TestCase is configured, add it to an ExecutionList and run it.

1. Monitor the Accessibility Column: In the Execution tab, Tosca displays a dedicated “Accessibility” column.

1. Understand Severity Levels: Issues are automatically classified by impact to help you prioritize fixes:
   1. Critical: Blocker issues that completely prevent a user from finishing a task (e.g., a “Submit” button that is invisible to a screen reader).
   2. Serious: Significant barriers that frustrate users but don’t necessarily block the entire flow.
   3. Moderate/Minor: Subtle issues like slightly off-color contrast or missing labels on non-essential elements.

4. Generate compliance reports

A legal or compliance team will often need a formal report of your findings.

1. Export the Report: Right-click your ExecutionList and select Export accessibility report.
2. Select Format: Choose between PDF (best for stakeholders) or JSON (best for developers to ingest into bug-tracking tools like Jira).
3. Review Actionable Feedback: The report doesn’t just list the failures; it provides the specific WCAG success criterion violated and a suggested code fix that you can review.

Accessibility is a shared responsibility.

5. Integrate into CI/CD

Don’t wait until the end of the project to test. Add automated accessibility scans to your continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipeline. This ensures that every time a developer pushes code, it’s checked for accessibility.

You can use GitHub Actions, Jenkins, or GitLab to trigger these tests. If the tool finds a “Critical” violation, you can even configure the pipeline to fail the build. This prevents inaccessible code from ever reaching production.

Finally, make sure to keep your team trained.

Accessibility is a shared responsibility. Designers need to understand color contrast. Developers need to know how to use semantic HTML. QA engineers need to learn how to use screen readers for manual verification.

Organizations that provide role-based training see much higher success rates.

Best practices for QA teams

TL;DR: QA teams should prioritize critical user flows, use semantic HTML, avoid accessibility overlays, maintain a public accessibility statement, and fix issues at the design system level.

To build a sustainable accessibility practice, follow these industry-accepted best practices.

1. Prioritize critical flows

Start by testing the most important parts of your app. This includes login pages, checkout flows, and search functions.

2. Use semantic HTML

Always use the correct tag for the job. Use <button> for buttons and <a> for links. This provides built-in accessibility that custom “divs” cannot match.

3. Don’t rely on overlays

“Accessibility widgets” or overlays often fail to provide a good experience for screen reader users. Real compliance happens at the code level.

4. Maintain an accessibility statement

Publish a public-facing document that outlines your commitment to accessibility. This shows users and regulators that you are taking the issue seriously.

5. Fix at the source

Use a design system with accessible components. When you fix a component in the design system, every page using that component is automatically updated.

Key metrics in accessibility testing

TL;DR: Teams can measure accessibility progress using quantitative KPIs like finding density and MTTR, along with qualitative metrics such as user satisfaction and accessibility maturity.

How do you know if you are actually making improvements? Well, you need to track outputs. Accessibility Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) help teams set goals and get concrete feedback on their performance.

Quantitative metrics

• Finding Density: The number of accessibility issues per page. A decreasing density over time shows that your developers are learning to write better, more accessible code.
• Mean Time to Resolution (MTTR): How long it takes to fix an accessibility bug once it is found.
• Task Success Rate: The percentage of users with disabilities who can complete a core journey without errors.

Qualitative metrics

• User Satisfaction (CSAT): Surveying users with disabilities about their experience. A score above 70% is generally considered good.
• Accessibility Maturity Level: A self-assessment of how well accessibility is embedded into your organization’s culture.

Here are some examples of KPIs you could measure.

Common challenges and solutions for accessibility testing

TL;DR: Common challenges include false positives, sprint time constraints, and dynamic content testing, which can be addressed through high-quality automation tools, shift-left practices, and interaction-based testing.

Even with the best tools, you will face hurdles. Here are the most common ones and how to beat them.

1. High rate of false positives

Challenge

Automated tools can sometimes flag things that are not actually issues. This “noise” can frustrate developers.

Solution

Use high-quality engines like axe-core that focus on “zero false positive” rules. Also, have an accessibility expert review the initial reports to filter out irrelevant findings.

2. Lack of time in Agile sprints

Challenge

Teams often say they are too busy to test for accessibility during every sprint.

Solution

Shift-left. By using automated tools in the IDE or CI/CD pipelines like Tosca, developers get instant feedback. It’s much cheaper to fix a bug while writing the code than it is to fix it weeks later when the feature is further down the development pipeline.

3. Testing dynamic content

Challenge

Modern apps often change content without a page reload (like React or Nuxt apps). Standard static scanners miss this dynamic content.

Solution

Use interaction-based testing tools like Playwright or Tosca. These tools can click buttons, open menus, and scan the page at every step of a user journey.

While traditional AI might just suggest a fix, an agent can plan and execute the entire remediation process.

Agentic AI in accessibility testing

TL;DR: Agentic AI enhances accessibility testing by enabling self-healing scripts, contextual image analysis, automated remediation, and predictive risk assessment while supporting—not replacing—human testers.

The next frontier of quality assurance is agentic AI. Agentic AI refers to autonomous AI systems that can independently set goals, reason through problems, and take actions to complete complex tasks. 

While traditional AI might just suggest a fix, an agent can plan and execute the entire remediation process.

How agentic AI strengthens accessibility

QA teams can use agentic technology to move beyond simple scanning. Agents act like a “digital coworker” that works around the clock. Agents can:

1. Generate self-healing test scripts

In traditional automation, a minor UI change can break a test case. Agentic AI uses “smart locators” to identify elements even if their underlying code changes. This drastically reduces maintenance time and involvement.

2. Run contextual image analysis

Agents use computer vision to “see” images. They can generate highly accurate alt text that describes the actual intent of the image, not just its basic shape.

3. Execute autonomous remediation

An agent can scan your code, find a contrast error, and then automatically create a Pull Request (PR) with the corrected CSS.

4. Provide predictive risk analysis

By analyzing historical data, agents can predict which parts of your application are most likely to have accessibility regressions.

It’s important to note that Agentic AI is not intended to replace the human tester. Instead, it’s best suited to handle the “grunt repetitive work” most testers have to deal with. This allows the QA team to focus on high-level strategy and complex user experience validation.

Case study for agentic AI

To further illustrate the power of agentic AI in accessibility testing, let’s explore a case study.

Achmea is a major insurance company that needed to scale its testing for agile development. They struggled with manual regression testing that could not keep pace with their release cycles.

Problem

Manual testing was a bottleneck. Regression cycles were slow, and test execution was limited.

Solution

They implemented a shift-left solution with Tricentis Tosca. Leveraging a model-based approach, they automated regression and accessibility testing.

Outcome

Achmea tripled their test execution speed, going from 70 to 205 regression tests per year. Additionally, they achieved a 30% savings in testing costs and reduced their manual effort by 25%.

This case study shows that automation is not just about finding bugs. It’s about enabling a faster, more reliable development life cycle.

Conclusion

TL;DR: Automated accessibility testing helps organizations catch violations early, stay compliant with evolving regulations, and build inclusive digital products using automation and AI.

Automated accessibility testing is the foundation of a modern, inclusive digital strategy. It allows teams to catch most violations instantly.

By integrating these tools into your CI/CD pipeline, you protect your company from massive fines and lawsuits. More importantly, you ensure that your product is usable by everyone, regardless of their physical or cognitive abilities.

As we move into 2026, the legal stakes are higher than ever. New DOJ rules and deadlines mean that compliance is no longer optional. By leveraging agentic AI and world-class tools like Tricentis Tosca, your QA team can lead the way in building a more equitable digital future.

Next Steps

Here are some next steps to follow:

• Before you automate, you need to know where you stand. Run a full scan of your application using an automated tool to find the most common errors. This gives you a starting point for remediation.
• Confirm where your product is missing the requirements of the WCAG 2.1.
• Implement a robust accessibility testing workflow with your team.

Accessibility is a human right. It’s also a massive business opportunity. Don’t leave your users behind. Ready to automate your accessibility journey with an AI powered solution? Check out Tricentis Tosca.

This post was written by Juan Reyes. As an entrepreneur, skilled engineer, and mental health champion, Juan pursues sustainable self-growth, embodying leadership, wit, and passion. With over 15 years of experience in the tech industry, Juan has had the opportunity to work with some of the most prominent players in mobile development, web development, and e-commerce in Japan and the US.