Can Siteimprove Accessibility test dynamic content for accessibility?

Summary

Siteimprove evaluates only a static snapshot of rendered content and does not check content that appears after user interaction.

Question

Can Siteimprove Accessibility test dynamic content for accessibility?

Answer

Dynamic content can be defined as content that appears on a page, or within an element after the user triggers a change to the page or the element.

An example would be selecting a button that displays additional text on the page, a single-page form where additional input fields are revealed on the page only after the user has entered information into a previous field, or an interactive map or chart.

In the accessibility module, the crawler gets a static snapshot of this page, roughly speaking, after executing the onload scripts. We check that snapshot and nothing else. Additionally, Accessibility only checks content that is rendered.

Take the example of the interactive map, for buttons with text that is only displayed on hover, or after clicking, we will not check the extra content that appears.

Environment / Applicability

• Product/Feature: Accessibility crawler and scanning behavior
• Version / Platform: All versions
• Audience: Developers, accessibility specialists, QA engineers
• Geographic/Language considerations: None

Key takeaways

• Only rendered, on-load content is evaluated
• Interaction-based or hidden content is not checked