The Role of Automation in Accessibility Testing

In 2024, over 95.5% of the world’s top 1 million websites had detectable accessibility issues on their homepages. These issues range from missing alt text and poor contrast ratios to incomplete form labels—all of which create barriers for people with disabilities. Globally, over 1.3 billion people live with some form of disability, according to the World Health Organization. This is not a niche group; it’s a massive segment of potential users and customers.

In the United States, legal enforcement around accessibility is also ramping up. The number of digital accessibility lawsuits filed under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) has been increasing annually, reaching over 4,600 lawsuits in 2023 alone. Non-compliance is no longer just a UX concern—it’s a legal and financial risk.

In this context, accessibility testing is not optional. It’s an essential part of product development that ensures everyone, regardless of ability, can access and interact with digital platforms. Yet, manual testing alone is often too time-consuming and costly to be applied comprehensively across modern, complex applications. This is where automation steps in. By incorporating automated accessibility testing into the development lifecycle, companies can identify and fix common issues early, increase test coverage, and make accessibility a scalable practice rather than a last-minute checklist item.

In this article, we’ll explore the role of automation in accessibility testing: what it can do, where it falls short, and how to implement it effectively within your QA strategy.

Understanding accessibility testing

Accessibility testing is the process of ensuring that digital products—websites, applications, software platforms—can be used by people with a wide range of disabilities, including visual, auditory, motor, and cognitive impairments. At its core, accessibility testing is about inclusivity: making sure that no user is left behind due to barriers in design or code.

This type of testing evaluates whether a digital product complies with established accessibility standards, most notably the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), developed by the W3C. These guidelines define how to make web content more perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust. Meeting these standards is a legal requirement in many jurisdictions and a key component of good user experience design everywhere.

Common elements tested during accessibility reviews include:

• Alternative text for images so screen readers can describe visual elements.
• Keyboard navigation support for users who cannot use a mouse.
• Color contrast and use of color to ensure readability for users with color blindness or low vision.
• ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) attributes are used to make dynamic content and UI components accessible.
• Form labels and instructions to support users with cognitive or learning disabilities.

Accessibility testing can be performed manually by QA professionals, developers, or users with disabilities, or automatically through tools that scan for code-level issues. While manual testing allows for deeper analysis and user feedback, it is resource-intensive and often limited in scope. That’s why many organizations turn to automation to complement and scale their efforts.

But automation isn’t just about saving time. It’s about building accessibility into the development lifecycle, so accessibility issues are caught and corrected early, before they reach users or escalate into compliance failures.

The advantages of automated accessibility testing

Incorporating automated accessibility testing into your QA process can deliver substantial benefits, especially when speed, consistency, and scalability are key. While it doesn’t replace the need for human judgment or usability testing with real users, automation helps teams catch many common and preventable accessibility issues earlier in the development cycle. 

Here are the core advantages:

1. Speed and efficiency

Automated accessibility tools can scan entire websites or applications in seconds, flagging issues that might take hours for a human tester to find manually. This is especially valuable in agile or CI/CD environments, where teams ship updates frequently and cannot afford delays caused by lengthy manual reviews.

For example, automated tools can instantly identify:

• Missing or empty alt attributes on images
• Incorrect use of heading tags (e.g., skipped levels)
• Insufficient color contrast
• Improper use of ARIA roles
• Missing form labels or input associations

Running these tests early and often helps shift accessibility testing left, integrating it into the earliest stages of development.

2. Consistency and objectivity

Human testers may interpret guidelines differently or overlook small issues after repeated testing sessions. Automated tools, by contrast, apply the same logic and criteria every time they scan a component or page. This reduces variability and ensures consistent application of WCAG criteria across your product.

Consistent testing also helps establish and maintain internal standards over time. Teams can track improvements (or regressions) in accessibility compliance and ensure newly introduced features meet established benchmarks.

3. Continuous integration support

Many modern accessibility testing tools integrate directly into development pipelines. This allows teams to run tests automatically during each build or deployment, catching violations before code reaches production. Popular tools like axe-core, Lighthouse, and Pa11y can be configured to fail builds if accessibility thresholds aren’t met, ensuring that issues are addressed as part of the normal QA process, not as an afterthought.

This integration empowers developers to take ownership of accessibility from the beginning and fosters a culture of accountability and inclusiveness.

4. Cost-effectiveness

Accessibility defects that make it to production are not only harder to fix—they’re often more expensive. Fixes can involve redesigning interfaces, reworking code, or rethinking entire user flows. Automated testing helps reduce long-term costs by catching issues when they’re cheaper and easier to fix.

It also helps teams avoid potential legal expenses tied to non-compliance. In markets like the U.S., companies have faced lawsuits for failing to provide accessible websites and digital services. Automation helps establish a defensible, documented testing process that demonstrates a good-faith effort toward compliance.

Implementing automation in your accessibility strategy

Successfully adopting automation in accessibility testing isn’t just about choosing a tool and running scans. It requires thoughtful integration into your team’s development and QA workflows, along with clear processes for interpreting results and taking action. Below are key steps to help you implement automation effectively and sustainably.

1. Choose the right tools

Not all accessibility tools are created equal. Some specialize in browser extensions for developer convenience, while others offer CI/CD integrations or enterprise-level reporting dashboards. Common and widely used tools include:

• axe-core: A powerful, open-source engine that can be embedded into browser extensions, development workflows, and testing frameworks.
• Lighthouse: A Google-developed tool that performs audits on performance, SEO, and accessibility.Pa11y: An open-source tool that allows for automated testing via command line or continuous integration environments.
• WAVE: A browser-based evaluation tool ideal for quick checks and visual feedback.
• Deque axe DevTools: A commercial offering that builds on axe-core and adds advanced auditing, analytics, and workflow features.

Choose a tool (or combination of tools) that aligns with your team’s existing stack, coding practices, and accessibility goals.

2. Integrate into development and QA pipelines

For accessibility automation to be effective, it must be part of your continuous testing strategy. That means embedding it within your CI/CD pipeline so tests run automatically with each build or pull request. This allows developers and testers to catch issues early, when they’re cheaper and easier to fix, and encourages shared responsibility across teams.

Consider setting accessibility thresholds or benchmarks in your pipeline, such as “no critical violations allowed” or “pass rate must exceed 90%.” These thresholds can help enforce quality gates and signal when a release is not ready.

3. Treat automated results as starting points

Automated test results can sometimes be noisy or generate false positives. It’s important to review flagged issues carefully, understand their context, and validate them before making decisions. Don’t treat automated outputs as absolute truth—use them as indicators that guide further investigation and testing.

Over time, you’ll develop patterns and best practices that reduce recurring issues and refine how your team interprets automated findings.

4. Pair automation with manual and user testing

As emphasized earlier, automation alone is not enough. Manual testing and usability checks should still be scheduled regularly, especially before major releases or when introducing new features.

Consider creating a hybrid workflow where:

• Automated checks run daily or per commit.
• Manual keyboard and screen reader testing is performed on a weekly or sprint basis.
• User feedback from people with disabilities is collected quarterly or during major updates.

This approach balances speed with depth and ensures a continuous loop of improvement.

5. Educate your team

Adopting accessibility automation is also a culture shift. Developers, designers, and QA professionals need to understand why accessibility matters and how their work contributes to it. Provide ongoing training on WCAG guidelines, accessibility tooling, and testing methodologies.

The more comfortable your team is with accessibility concepts and tools, the more naturally they will incorporate inclusive practices into their everyday work.

Limitations and the need for manual testing

While automated accessibility testing brings undeniable value, it’s not a silver bullet. Automation can detect only a subset of accessibility issues—typically around 20% to 30% of known violations, depending on the tool and context. The rest requires human judgment, interpretation, and interaction that automation simply can’t replicate.

What automation can’t catch

Automated tools are designed to scan for technical violations—missing tags, improper structure, or measurable contrast ratios. But they can’t assess contextual or experiential aspects of accessibility. For example:

• A tool can confirm whether an image has an alt attribute, but not whether the description is meaningful or accurate.
• It can detect the presence of form labels, but not whether the instructions are clear or helpful.
• It can verify keyboard navigation paths, but not whether the interaction flow is intuitive and usable without a mouse.

In other words, automation can highlight symptoms, but it can’t fully understand the experience.

The value of manual testing

Manual testing complements automation by focusing on real-world usability. This includes:

• Screen reader testing to ensure that content is announced properly and flows logically.
• Keyboard-only navigation to check for traps, logical tab order, and focus visibility.
• User testing with people with disabilities provides insights that no tool can match.
• Cognitive and linguistic accessibility evaluations, to ensure content is understandable and the instructions are clear.

Manual testing also helps uncover edge cases that automated tools might miss, such as dynamic content updates or non-standard UI components.

You may also be interested in: QualityForge 2024 Recap: A Day Dedicated to Digital Accessibility.

Adopt a balanced approach

The most effective accessibility strategies combine automation for coverage and manual testing for depth. Automation speeds up the process and ensures baseline compliance. Manual testing digs deeper to ensure that people with disabilities can use and benefit from your product in the real world.

Ultimately, accessibility is about more than just passing tests—it’s about creating equitable digital experiences. That goal requires both machines and people working together.

Final thoughts

Accessibility is no longer a nice-to-have—it’s a necessity. As digital experiences continue to shape how we learn, work, shop, and connect, these experiences must be inclusive of everyone, including people with disabilities. For QA and development teams, this means making accessibility testing a core part of the software lifecycle, not an afterthought.

Automation plays a key role in making this possible. It enables teams to test faster, more frequently, and at scale. It reduces the burden of repetitive checks, catches common violations early, and integrates seamlessly into modern CI/CD workflows. But automation isn’t a complete solution. To build truly accessible products, it must be paired with manual testing, user feedback, and a deep understanding of usability for people of all abilities.

By combining automated tools with human insight and embedding accessibility into your workflows from day one, you can lower risk, reduce costs, and most importantly, create digital products that everyone can use.

As your team looks to scale accessibility efforts, consider starting small: choose a reliable tool, run an audit on your most critical user journeys, and build from there. With the right strategy and mindset, accessibility automation can become a powerful driver of quality, innovation, and inclusion.

Ready to make your digital products accessible to all users? Start integrating automated accessibility testing into your development workflow today and ensure your products are inclusive, compliant, and user-friendly. Contact us to learn how our QA and accessibility testing services can help you deliver exceptional user experiences for everyone.