With hundreds of users available around the globe, developing a software application is not enough. You also need to validate and verify the developed software application. The main focus should be to develop a software application that is easily accessible and usable by the end user. This also will ensure that the end user will be experiencing a seamless software application while performing their desired action.
But before verifying and validating the software application based on its accessibility and usability, let us first understand the two terms: accessibility and usability. This may sound similar, but when discussing them in technology, accessibility simply means designing a software application compatible with every user. This involves especially abled users and those who need to be more technically sound. Usability refers to the overall interaction with the software application. This means how easily a user can navigate through a software application.
Validating and verifying the accessibility and usability of software applications also ensures the quality and the demand of the software application among the users in the industry. Thus it must be done efficiently. Here, we learn about various ways to validate and verify the accessibility and usability of the software application. The various challenges faced in the automation testing process and the best practices that can be adopted to overcome these challenges.
How Do You Validate And Verify The Accessibility And Usability Of Software Applications?
Here are ways in which you can verify and validate the accessibility and usability of the software application.
Conducting Accessibility Audits
As a member of the software applications development team, the first step you can take to examine the correctness of the usability and accessibility of the software application is to perform accessibility audits. To conduct accessibility audits, you must execute both manual and automation testing. It is best considered if these tests are performed under an accessibility expert. You should also opt for certain assistive technologies and integrate them into various testing states for the best result.
Accessibility experts can easily identify various defects present in software applications that restrict usability and accessibility. The assistive technology involves using automated tools such as WAVE and Axe that can detect the presence of any bug related to the accessibility in the software applications. Also, manual testing is equally important in conducting accessibility audits as it involves the presence of various testers with the ability to find critical issues that automation tools may miss related to the real user’s experience.
Compliance with Standards
Software applications have end users all over the globe with different abilities and ways of visualizing and using things. Therefore, various standards have been made for accessing and using software applications that best complement all users. One such standard is the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, abbreviated as WCAG. The standard is an international guideline to be maintained while developing a software application. As a software tester, while validating and verifying the accessibility and usability of software applications, you should ensure that the software application is well-compatible with international guidelines so that its accessibility can be maintained.
Also, you must regularly check for the updates made to these standards and validate your software application accordingly.
User Testing
The best way to examine the accessibility and usability of the software application is to include real-world users in the testing process. Here, every individual involved in the testing process must have different abilities and disabilities to conduct a varying range of tests. Also, user testing allows testers to find issues generally missed during test automation.
Also, real-world users provide more relevant insights about the software application, which helps maintain the usability and accessibility of the software applications. Also, user testing will allow the software application development team to modify and fix issues more effectively according to the user’s feedback.
Cross-Platform Compatibility
Multiple users use software applications; every user may prefer different platforms according to their needs. Thus, the developed software application must be compatible with every platform. Also, cross-platform compatibility ensures every user can easily use and access the software applications. Cross-platform compatibility also deals with the virtual difference in the software application across multiple platforms. Different devices and platforms have different screen sizes and resolutions and are configured to different operating systems. Thus, it becomes essential to develop a responsive software application to validate the usability and accessibility of the software application. Cross-platform compatibility testing requires various devices to test upon. This may lead to over-expenditure. Therefore, you may go for cloud-based cross-platform compatibility testing. One such platform that can be used is LambdaTest.
LambdaTest is an AI-powered test orchestration and execution platform to run manual and automated tests at scale. The platform allows you to perform both real-time and automation testing across 3000+ environments and real mobile devices.
LambdaTest is a robust solution for doing cross-browser testing. It offers a suite of features and capabilities designed to address the challenges of ensuring that applications perform seamlessly across various operating systems, browsers, and devices.
Usability Heuristics
The other way testers and developers can evaluate the usability and accessibility of the software application is through usability heuristics. In the process of usability heuristics, the tester uses the rule of thumb to verify the usability of the software applications. One of the famous principles Jacob Nielsen gave is highly recommended for the usability validation of a software application. The usability heuristic is considered a powerful approach to verify and validate the software application because it looks at the overall software application visibility, control, and consistency.
The development team of the software application must conduct the usability heuristics frequently. It will help them identify the issues integrated with the software application and build room for improvement.
Performance Testing
The usability and accessibility of the software application can even be verified and validated through performance testing. Usability and accessibility are the measures of performance as their correctness will describe the software application quality and provide a seamless user experience. During the execution of performance testing, the responsiveness of the software application must be dealt with. Also, the loading times and overall speed must be evaluated and analyzed. These are mainly focused on because a slow software application leads to various issues and is a barrier to absolute user experience.
Feedback Mechanisms
Feedback plays an important role in improving the quality and performance of the software application. The same applies while verifying and validating the usability and accessibility of the software application. The feedback will help highlight the issues and bugs in the software application that the testers or test automation tools might have missed. For feedback, the real-world users who will be using the software application in the future are usually involved in the testing process. For feedback, the end users are either provided with the contact forms or a user survey is conducted where they put their insights related to the software applications. Also, it is best to include users with certain disabilities so that their challenges and needs can be considered.
Documentation and Training
The other way to ensure that every user can easily use and access software applications is to provide documentation with the software application. The documentation should consist of the software application’s small features and functionality. It should also have the technique to operate them. Along with the documentation, you could also train the end user so that those who are not so good with technology or people with disabilities can also handle the software applications.
Challenges in Verifying and Validating the Accessibility and Usability of Software Applications
- Different users have different requirements; thus, the testers must cover and fulfill diverse user needs.
- To ensure usability and accessibility, software applications need to be tested using various resources, which may lead to budget issues.
- The standards and regulations are occasionally updated, meaning the software application must also be updated to meet the criteria.
- Automated testing is not enough. You need to add on the manual testing, which requires more time and money.
Best Practices for Verifying and Validating the Accessibility and Usability of Software Applications
For every problem, there is a solution. Here are a few of the best practices that can be considered while validating the software application to overcome the challenges.
- Choose the right tool and framework for test automation according to the software application requirement.
- You may have several options for the test automation tool, so choose the one that is budget-friendly and compatible with your software application.
- Use international standards and guidelines set for the accessibility of the software application along with the usability heuristics for measuring the usability of the software application.
- You should plan and organize your testing procedure and prioritize the critical test case scenarios.
Conclusion
Usability and accessibility are fundamental aspects of a software application. Thus, verifying and validating the software application based on its usability and accessibility is pivotal. A software application is considered best if the end user can easily access and use it. Thus, the ways mentioned above, such as feedback mechanism, documentation, and various testing techniques along with following standard guidelines, will help the development team develop a software application that is best suitable for its user.
Also, this may lead to various challenges, which could then be overcome by the best practices mentioned in the above section. This article best suggests how you can verify and validate your software application so that it can be easily accessed and used by any user, irrespective of their ability and disability.
