4.7 Testing Apps for Accessibility

Learn about testing applications for accessibility.

APEX is designed, built, and tested for accessibility. Oracle publishes an Accessibility Conformance Report to document known issues and gaps in the framework. When building applications with APEX, it is your responsibility to ensure the accessibility of your application by:

• taking time to understand the guidelines you are required to follow
• understanding the known defects with APEX
• conducting your own testing

For more information on understanding known defects, see Open Bugs and Known Issues.

• About Accessibility Testing
  Develop a full testing strategy for your applications.
• About Accessibility Checks in Advisor
  Use the Advisor to perform accessibility checks on a single page or on an entire application.
• Running Advisor on a Single Page
  Perform accessibility checks (and others) on a page in an app.
• Running Advisor on an Entire Application
  Perform accessibility checks (and others) on an entire app.

4.7.1 About Accessibility Testing

Develop a full testing strategy for your applications.

Testing for accessibility is wide and varied, and devising a full testing strategy is beyond the scope of this document. However, in essence, a full testing strategy should include:

• testing throughout the development cycle, rather than just at the end
• making testing the responsibility of all developers on your team and an integral part of your design and development process
• testing with people with different abilities and assistive technologies
• paying particular attention to any non-standard content included in your app, like plug-ins or 3rd party libraries

APEX includes a built-in tool called the Advisor, which developers can run as part of quality assurance checks for an application. The Advisor highlights possible common accessibility problems, such as page items with no labels or page regions with no row headers defined. Developers should review and fix these problems as part of their ongoing development process. We recommend fixing issues identified by the Advisor before performing other accessibility testing, such as testing with assistive technologies.

4.7.2 About Accessibility Checks in Advisor

Use the Advisor to perform accessibility checks on a single page or on an entire application.

The Advisor performs a series of accessibility checks to identify some common APEX configuration errors that have a negative impact on accessibility.

Theme Style tested for accessibility

Theme Styles that have not been tested for accessibility may contain more issues, such as insufficient color contrast.

Page has page title

Meaningful page titles help users understand the content and purpose of the current page. (Note: Global pages and pages with no regions are excluded from this check.)

Region has Row Header

Regions that support row headers should have a column with the Value Identifies Row attribute set to Yes.

Page item has label

The item should have a defined label. For example, only defining the Value Placeholder text is not sufficient in labelling an item for accessibility.

Page item does not cause an unexpected context change

Some page item settings can cause an unexpected change of context for the user, such as select lists that submit the page after a value is selected.

Consider the following ways to retain the context of the page:

• Remove page submit or redirect behavior from page items, and replace the functionality with Dynamic Actions or Cascading LOVs (if you need to stay on the same page).
• Notify users what happens when they click an item. For example, adding "Launches new page" in the label.

Display Image item has image ALT text defined

Display Image page items must provide text or a column (depending on the Based On setting) to serve as the image's alternative text. This is important for accessibility, as it is the only way for some users to perceive the content of the image.

4.7.3 Running Advisor on a Single Page

Perform accessibility checks (and others) on a page in an app.

To run Advisor on a single page:

1. Navigate to the appropriate page.
2. Click the Utilities menu and select Advisor.

   Advisor appears.

3. Under Checks to Perform, review the selected options. Select and deselect options as appropriate.
4. Click Perform Check at the top of the page.

   A Results page appears.

5. To alter the existing preferences:
   1. Under Filter Result, deselect the appropriate options.
   2. Click Apply Filter.
6. To re-run the Advisor and see if reported problems are fixed, click Perform Check.

4.7.4 Running Advisor on an Entire Application

Perform accessibility checks (and others) on an entire app.

To run Advisor on an entire application:

1. Navigate to the appropriate application:
   1. On the Workspace home page, click the App Builder icon.

      The App Builder home page appears.

   2. Select the application.

      The Application home page appears.

2. Click Utilities.
3. Click Advisor.

   The Advisor page appears.

4. Under Checks to Perform:
   1. Expand Checks to Perform.
   2. Review the selected options. Select and deselect options as appropriate.
5. In Pages(s), enter a comma separated list of pages in the field provided. To check all pages, leave this option blank.
6. Click Perform Check at the top of the page.

   A Results page appears.

   Tip:

   Current Advisor settings are used next time the check is performed.

7. To alter the existing preferences:
   1. Under Filter Result, deselect the appropriate options.
   2. Click Apply Filter.
8. To run Advisor again, click Perform Check.