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Re: Multi language Testing

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From: Steve Green
Date: Sep 23, 2019 12:19AM

It depends what you mean by "accessibility testing". It is perfectly possible to conduct a WCAG audit without speaking the language the website is written in. We frequently do that, using online translation tools for text and OCR applications for images of text. Bear in mind that it is not necessary to use a screen reader when doing a WCAG audit because all the tests can be done by inspection of the user interface and the source code.

If you want to conduct an expert review using screen readers, then you would need to work with a translator. Again, we do that frequently and it works very well.

If you have tested the website in English, it is faster to test in subsequent languages but you do need to check every element to ensure that all the non-visible text has been translated correctly, such as "alt", "title" and "aria-label" attributes. There are many more apart from those three. You also need to verify that "lang" attributes have been used correctly everywhere there is a change of language. Strictly speaking, this is more of a translation test rather than an accessibility test, but you need accessibility testing skills to do it.

Steve Green
Managing Director
Test Partners Ltd