MOBILE ACCESSIBILITY TESTING

InfoStretch Corporation
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1.0 All Sections Hemal Trivedi 28/06/2013 First Draft

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Hemal Trivedi 28/06/2013 Amod Bhalerao 28/06/2013

Table of Contents
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1 Purpose of Document..........................................................................................................................4

2 What is Mobile Accessibility?..............................................................................................................4

3 How people with disabilities use mobile devices?...............................................................................4

4 Why is a site required to have Mobile Accessibility?...........................................................................5

5 Standards and Guidelines for Mobile Accessibility..............................................................................5

5.1 Guidelines for Mobile Web..........................................................................................................6

5.2 Guidelines for iOS Apps...............................................................................................................6

5.3 Guidelines for Android Apps........................................................................................................6

6 Mobile Accessibility Assessment.........................................................................................................7

6.1 Screen Access/Reader Applications.............................................................................................7

7 Checklists for Testing Accessibility.......................................................................................................8

8 Basic Tests...........................................................................................................................................8

8.1 Test Cases....................................................................................................................................8

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1 PURPOSE OF DOCUMENT
This document provides information about Mobile Accessibility and QA Services offered for the same by
Infostretch.

2 WHAT IS MOBILE ACCESSIBILITY?

"Mobile accessibility" generally refers to making websites and applications more accessible to people
with disabilities when they are using mobile devices. This area encompasses people using a broad range
of devices to interact with the web: Smartphones, Tablets, Phablets, TVs, and more.

Disability here does not necessarily mean people who are deaf, blind, amputees, wheelchair users, etc.
There are multiple types of disabilities and each one of us is suffering from one or the other type of
disability, either fully or partially.

Diverse User Groups – Vision (Blind), Hearing (Deaf), Speech, Mobility, Cognitive & Learning
disabilities

Hidden Disabilities – Chronic Fatigue, Photo Sensitivity, Mental Health

Mild Disabilities – People wearing glasses, Color Blindness

Temporary Disabilities – Broken wrists, Repetitive strain injury, Tiredness

Aging – Spans various disabilities and user groups – Children and Elderly folks (who can recognize
mainly solid colors for e.g. )

Assistive Technology Users – Speech output, Braille output, Voice Input, Magnification

Access Service Users – Captions, Subtitles, Audio Description, Sign Language Interpretation

3 HOW PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES USE MOBILE DEVICES?

Accessibility Feature or Setting Users

Speech output Blind, low vision, cognitive
Zoom Low vision, cognitive, mobility
Inverse colors, brightness control Low vision, cognitive
Headphones Hearing, cognitive
Speak text Low vision, cognitive

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Voice input Blind, low vision, cognitive, mobility
External / virtual keyboard, directional pad Blind, mobility
Captioning Deaf, cognitive
Audio description Blind, low vision

4 WHY IS A SITE REQUIRED TO HAVE MOBILE ACCESSIBILITY?

With global mobile phone use at an all time high, there has been a surge of interest in developing
websites that are accessible from a mobile device. Similarly, making websites accessible for people with
disabilities is an integral part of high quality websites, and in some cases a legal requirement.

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

- Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director and inventor of the World Wide Web

This mantra is as true for the mobile Web as it is for the desktop Web. Over a billion people worldwide
live with some kind of disability, and 285 million have visual impairments (39 million are blind and 246
have low vision), according to World Health Organization (WHO). Given these numbers, what excuses
are there for bad design practices that shut users out who are visually impaired and/or rely on assistive
technologies?

Making a site more accessible is partly about design – such as avoiding color schemes that make things
difficult for short-sighted or color-blind people to decipher – and partly about developing sites that can
be decoded and easily navigated by screen-readers. People with more severe visual impairments rely on
screen readers (on mobile and desktop devices) to read aloud the content of Websites.

Users of mobile devices and people with disabilities experience similar barriers when interacting with
web content. For example, mobile phone users will have a hard time if a website's navigation requires
the use of a mouse because they typically only have an alphanumeric keypad. Similarly, desktop
computer users with a motor disability will have a hard time using a website if they can't use a mouse.
Additionally, people with disabilities sometimes use mobile devices to access websites.

5 STANDARDS AND GUIDELINES FOR MOBILE ACCESSIBILITY

Accessibility laws and rules, including Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, apply to mobile products just
as they do to websites.

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The Web Accessibility Initiative by W3C has a guide to barriers that people with disabilities and people
using mobile devices experience when interacting with web content. The W3C provides
guidelines/standards on making accessible content and best practices for making mobile-friendly
content.

 Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) is a guide for making websites accessible to
people with disabilities.
 Mobile Web Best Practices (MWBP) is a guide for making websites usable from a mobile device.

 Mobile Web Application Best Practices (MWABP) is a guide for developing and delivering web
applications on mobile devices.

There is an overlap between MWBP, MWABP and WCAG. For example, the MWBP best practice on tab
order ("Create a logical order through links, form controls and objects") corresponds with the WCAG 2.0
success criteria on focus order ("...focusable components receive focus in an order that preserves
meaning and operability").

5.1 Guidelines for Mobile Web

According to W3C, there is a significant overlap in techniques for making a web site accessible for a
mobile device and for people with disabilities. W3C says:

Users of mobile devices and people with disabilities experience similar barriers when interacting with
Web content. For example, mobile phone users will have a hard time if a Web site's navigation requires
the use of a mouse because they typically only have an alphanumeric keypad. Similarly, desktop
computer users with a motor disability will have a hard time using a Web site if they can't use a mouse.
Additionally, people with disabilities may use a mobile device to access the Web site.

In Short, W3C recommends addressing mobile and disability accessibility at the same time.

A Research and Development work by W3C is in progress

http://www.w3.org/WAI/RD/wiki/Mobile_Accessibility

5.2 Guidelines for iOS Apps

Apple has provided the following resources to help make the developers make their apps accessible

Accessibility in iOS

Accessibility Programming Guide in iOS

iOS Human Interface Guidelines

Starting with iOS 5, various accessibility features are built into the Operating System. A list of features is
available for reference on http://mobilegovwiki.howto.gov/Accessibility+iOS
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5.3 Guidelines for Android Apps
The Android Developers Website provides the following tips on its Designing for Accessibility page.

To make applications more accessible, Android advices to make sure that the UI is navigable using a
directional controller and the widgets provide content descriptions. If a custom view is implemented, it
should be ensured that it delivers the appropriate accessibility events during user interaction

Additional information is available on Accessible Android:

http://accessibleandroid.blogspot.in/2011/03/developing.html

6 MOBILE ACCESSIBILITY ASSESSMENT

The Sites and apps can claim W3C® mobileOK™ Basic Conformance. mobileOK Basic primarily assesses
basic usability, efficiency and interoperability. The tests in mobileOK are based on W3C Mobile Web Best
Practices.

The Basic Tests are available at http://www.w3.org/TR/mobileOK-basic10-tests/

There are many sites and tools available which can do an assessment for the site and provide feedback if
the site is mobile ready or not.

W3 Mobile Validator: http://validator.w3.org/mobile/

Gomez Mobile Readiness Test: http://www.gomez.com/mobile-readiness-test/

Mobile Web Accessibility Assessment Tool: http://www.accessible-eu.org/index.php/mobilewaat-

detailed-information.html

mobiReady: http://ready.mobi/launch.jsp?locale=en_EN

Other than these sites, the mobile sites can be tested using Cross Browser Testing sites like
(crossbrowsertesting.com, perfectomobile, deviceanywhere, etc.)

6.1 Screen Access/Reader Applications

There are many screen reader applications available which can be used to access the content on the
mobile devices. Some of them are given here.

VoiceOver for iOS: https://www.apple.com/accessibility/ios/voiceover/

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 TalkBack for Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?
id=com.google.android.marvin.talkback

Mobile Accessibility for Android: http://www.codefactory.es/en/products.asp?id=415

Mobile Speak (Windows and Symbian): http://www.codefactory.es/en/products.asp?id=316

Nokia Screen Reader: http://store.ovi.com/content/224364

Symbian Mobile screen reader (Symbian S60):

http://www.nuance.com/for-individuals/by-solution/talks-zooms/index.htm

7 CHECKLISTS FOR TESTING ACCESSIBILITY

There are some checklists available which can confirm the accessibility of Mobile Sites/Apps.

Web Accessibility basic checklist which can be used for Mobile sites as well:
http://www.w3.org/WAI/eval/preliminary.html

Android Checklist: http://developer.android.com/tools/testing/testing_accessibility.html

8 BASIC TESTS
Basic Tests can be run on the site/app to see if they are accessible to the mobile device users

Some of the basic tests for mobile accessibility are available

http://www.iheni.com/mobile-accessibility-tests/

And some Tests for testing alternatives of Screen Readers

http://www.iheni.com/mobile-accessibility-tests-alternatives-for-screen-reader-users/

Other than these, some other tests that can be conducted:

When voice is activated for audio help, the reading rate (speed in which the application speaks out
the words) should be appropriate (unless changed by user)

When using a screen reader, be sure to include tests for everything the user would be doing, such as
install and un-install of the product.

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 When reading using screen reader, test for error pop-ups/notifications/password prompts

Checking maps/nearby locations using screen reader after a position has been zoomed in.

8.1 Test Cases

A selection of test cases used to test accessibility and Section 508 compliance of mobile applications

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