{"id":10055,"date":"2018-07-09T22:38:52","date_gmt":"2018-07-09T22:38:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/abstracta.us\/blog\/?p=10055"},"modified":"2025-05-05T21:23:44","modified_gmt":"2025-05-05T21:23:44","slug":"accessibility-testing-in-continuous-integration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abstracta.us\/blog\/accessibility-testing\/accessibility-testing-in-continuous-integration\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Easily Do Accessibility Testing in Continuous Integration"},"content":{"rendered":"

How to add accessibility tests to your CI pipeline using the open source tool, Pa11y<\/span><\/h1>\n

If you are unfamiliar with continuous integration (CI), it\u2019s a practice wherein <\/span>each developer\u2019s code is merged frequently (at least once per day). In this way, a stable code repository is maintained from which anyone can start working on a change. The build is automated with various automatic checks, such as code quality reviews, execution of unit tests, etc. <\/span><\/p>\n

Of the tests that can be run in a continuous integration environment, we will be looking at accessibility tests. Accessibility testing, according to <\/span>Guru99<\/span><\/a>, is a subset of usability testing, and it\u2019s performed to ensure that the application being tested is usable by people with disabilities like the deaf, blind, and color blind as well as other disadvantaged groups.<\/span><\/p>\n

To perform accessibility tests, you can use the open source tool, Pa11y<\/a> which lets you know if an application meets certain accessibility standards or not. At the same time, Pa11y allows a simple integration with CI engines like Circle-CI, Jenkins or Travis-CI, which is why it\u2019s a natural choice.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"pa11y\"<\/a><\/p>\n

There are different versions of the tool with which you can work: by command line, by a web service, and others. For this particular example, we\u2019ll use the console version.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s important to mention that for the proper functioning of Pa11y, you must have installed Node.js 4+ and PhantomJS. Then it is installed by command line very simply, with the following command:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0npm install -g pa11y<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

To use pa11y, use this command:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/em>pa11y [options] <url><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

The options field allows you to customize the type of testing that is going to be carried out in many ways. Among the parameters that can be specified, the main ones are:<\/span><\/p>\n