37th Annual CSUN Assistive Technology Conference Has Concluded

Developing & Implementing a Native Mobile Testing Strategy

Date & Time

Tuesday, March 15, 2022 - 2:20 PM PST

Location

Platinum 7-8

Description

As our accessibility team at UnitedHealth Group (UHG) has matured, our mobile group has spent the last 2 years developing testing standards specific to native mobile applications, based on Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) criteria. We’ve experienced many challenges and increased our knowledge while creating documentation, guidance, and processes around accessibility testing for native mobile. We will share how we did it, how we navigated challenges, and the important lessons learned in creating the native mobile standards. The overarching goals for us in creating native testing standards included: Consistency, Quality, Efficiency and Maturity. Consistency: the testing methodology must lead to consistent results and reporting. Quality: the testing methodology must provide accurate results and reporting. Efficiency: the testing methodology must be as simple as possible and reporting issues must be clear and concise. Maturity: native standards must be robust and able to change with new technologies and standards. The mobile team was formed of four accessibility engineers with varying experiences in mobile testing. We were all seasoned web accessibility engineers, but we also brought development backgrounds, expert screen reader backgrounds, the ability to have healthy debate, and a good amount of curiosity and general geekery. Our team met twice weekly to review each of the standards and write draft versions following an enterprise standard template consisting of the WCAG checkpoint (minimum), enterprise-specific recommendations, best practices, testing steps, and templated remarks that included findings and remediation suggestions. Our draft versions would be reviewed by our team and once agreed upon, would be passed to our internal Technical Advisory Group (TAG), a group of seasoned engineers, for a sanity and consistency check. If TAG agreed, the standard was passed and published.

Audience

Information & Communications Technology

Audience Level

Intermediate

Session Summary (Abstract)

This presentation outlines the journey undertaken by the mobile group at UnitedHealth Group in developing accessibility testing standards specific to native mobile applications. Learn about the process we developed for creating documentation and guidance around accessibility testing for native mobile, and the challenges we encountered along the way.

Session Type

General Track

Topics