Mobile Accessibility Testing

Native Apps

Our accessibility mobile testing evaluates your mobile app against the relevant Web Accessibility Initiative WCAG 2.2 Success Criteria, industry best practices as well as third-party mobile accessibility standards.

We test native mobile applications:

• iOS (Apple)
• Android

WCAG 2.2 Guidelines

Our team of accessibility experts manually review the app against the relevant WCAG 2.2 guidelines Level A and AA Success Criteria.

It is estimated by the W3C that 90% of the WCAG 2.2 guidelines are relevant to mobile apps.

Other W3C Guidelines

We also assess against any relevant W3C mobile web best practices.

The BBC Standards

In addition we review the app against a selection of the BBC Mobile Accessibility Standards and Guidelines and our own best practices & observations.

iOS & Android Guidelines

We refer to Apple’s iOS developer guidelines and Android Material Design as well as accessibility guidelines when identifying recommendations.

Our consultants are technical accessibility experts with years of experience, who have undertaken hundreds of audits.

Expert Human Analysis

We identify and examine each aspect of the app, accurately diagnose the cause of accessibility faults and give in-depth recommendations on how to resolve the issue.

On-Device Assistive Technology

To ensure real world accessibility we include an assessment of the app using inbuilt Assistive Technology (VoiceOver, TalkBack, Zoom) to identify practical accessibility issues.

Visual Design

Checking visual design to identify design issues is vital on handheld devices (sufficient colour contrast, size and spacing of interactive components, custom gestures are compatible with assistive technology).

Bluetooth Keyboard Only

Many screen reader users access their smartphone via a bluetooth keyboard; our audits include an assessment using a keyboard to ensure compatibility.

User Testing (optional)

We highly recommend including real-end user feedback as part of any accessibility evaluation.

See our User Testing service .

Issue Description

For each issue identified, we cite the relevant WCAG Success Criterion or other relevant guideline, and provide a brief outline of the issue and why it impacts accessibility.

The description is particularly useful for developers unfamiliar with assistive technology or accessibility issues.

Individualised Recommemdations

Tailor-made recommendatins including code snippets and screen grabs to illustrate the issue.

Severity

All issues are not equal. We rate each issue from Minor (minor issue that is a matter of technical compliance and has little impact) through Problematic, Serious and Catastrophic.

Prevalence

We identify how prevalent the issue is across the mobile app (Low, Medium, High, Very-High).

We Include More Examples

A common failure of traditional technical accessibility audits is a small number of examples.

Developers often only fix the issues in the audit without realising that other examples are present across the app.

We overcome this problem by citing multiple examples of the issue - allowing for all instances of the issue to be easily identified and fixed.

Test Method

How developers can replicate this test themselves and check if the problem has been fixed.

Presentation of Findings

Handover of the audit report, and a presentation of the audit findings and phone workshop.

Support

Each audit comes with an extended four hours email and phone support over 60 days.

We also provide support on an ad-hoc basis at an hourly rate if required, learn more .

Flexible Recommendations

One size doesn’t always fit all, especially with mobile web apps. If a recommendation can't be implemented, we will be happy to work with your team to identify an alternative.