Applause, the Boston-based specialist in crowd-sourced testing, released its new Applause Accessibility Tool to help automatically find and fix accessibility faults earlier in the software development lifecycle.
The tool was built by the company’s innovation team Applause Labs, and Applause said it will help developers identify key accessibility issues and provide an automated fix or recommendation. Manual evaluation by accessibility experts is still required to ensure compliance with regulations, the firm added.
Founder and CEO of Applause Doron Reuveni said: “Not only does the Applause Accessibility Tool find and fix key issues during the development process, it also educates developers so that the accessibility of apps and websites is improved on a continuing basis.”
US federal law, for example, insists that websites should be treated as public places as far as accessibility for individuals with disabilities is concerned, and designing accessibility into applications and websites remain a challenge for many companies.
Applause has conducted a survey of over 100 quality assurance professionals about how their companies address digital accessibility, and over half admitted their website did not meet the global Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 standards.
Some of the mistakes recognised by professionals on websites include accessibility error alerts not being sufficiently descriptive; site and page structures that are unclear, and websites that cannot be navigated with a keyboard.
