What the partnership with Deque means for your accessibility audit
Swink has become a partner of Deque for the Benelux region. By combining our knowledge and experience with that of Deque, we can offer even better services. But what does that mean? One of the changes is that we will now be conducting our accessibility audits using Deque's tool: axe Auditor. Michiel shares his initial experiences, demonstrates what this tool has to offer and explains what this means for our customers.
Accessibility testing is nothing new for our specialists, of course. The only difference is that we will now be using a different tool to compile our reports. This will not affect the test results. Nor will it affect the quality of the surveys: that was already high and will remain so. But axe Auditor certainly has added value. For example, researchers can do certain things more efficiently and visualise their findings immediately.
More automation and efficiency with axe-Auditor
The integration with other Deque tools also makes the work easier. "We always use software that tests certain aspects. The browser plug-in axe DevTools is an example of this. Previously, you had to write your issues based on the observations of this tool. But now you can have a page analysed directly by axe DevTools and the results are automatically processed in your report. All you have to do is remove duplicate issues. If you prefer to do it manually, you can. You can use your own way of working with axe Auditor."
Another major advantage is that the auditor only has to process components that occur more frequently once. ‘Every page has a header with a logo and a main menu. You can test these types of elements as separate components in the tool. This means you no longer have to check them for every page. That's nice.’
axe Auditor guides researchers through the audit process. Michiel: "The tool divides each WCAG success criterion into different checkpoints. Each success criterion has different aspects. For criterion 1.3.1, for example, you can look at the headings, at tables, or you can check whether all radio buttons are correctly linked and labelled. Each of these things is a checkpoint here. It's a different way of working. If you want, you can use it as a guide so that you don't forget anything."
Advantages of axe-Auditor for our clients
In addition to the advantages for researchers, customers also benefit from the new approach. We share screenshots of issues in presentations, but now they are also included in the report. This allows you to see immediately where the problem lies. Customers also receive a dashboard showing statistics about the issues, such as their number and impact. ‘If the colour contrast is not quite right, for example, this has less impact than if a menu cannot be operated with the keyboard. This allows customers to immediately identify and address problems with high impact.’
Many clients also appreciate that the data can not only be viewed as a web page, but can also be exported to an XML or CSV file, for example. This allows them to supplement it with information such as which developer will be working on it. However, it can also be imported into a ticket system such as Jira. The presentation of the report and issues can therefore be tailored to the client's requirements and their system.
Continuous improvements through our real-world experience
We are currently at the beginning of our partnership with Deque. But there is much more to come. For example, we will continue to develop the tool together with Deque. Michiel: ‘I really enjoy working with Deque. If I come across things that could be improved, I can pass them on and Deque will take care of them. This has already enabled us to implement improvements in the recent period. That's a big advantage we have. It allows us to continuously improve our reports and research methods. That's good for us, but of course also for the client.’
