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Re: PDF Table column headers and scope attribute

for

From: Steve Green
Date: Mar 20, 2023 7:52PM

This is exactly why you need to be very wary when using assistive technologies as testing tools. They are buggier than proper testing tools, none of them fully support HTML5 and ARIA, and they often use heuristics to improve the user experience when the coding is wrong.

I don't even trust "proper" testing tools, so I do the majority of my WCAG conformance testing by code inspection, whether it's a website or a PDF. If I use any kind of tool or assistive technology, I do it after the code inspection and I verify the results by inspecting the code.

We have recently been comparing Axe and ARC extensions for Chrome, and it's surprising how often they give different results, given that they are essentially the same type of tool. Likewise for PAC2021 and Commonlook PDF Validator when testing PDFs.

All this is not to say that we shouldn't test with assistive technologies. It's just that it's a completely different activity than a WCAG audit.

Steve Green
Managing Director
Test Partners Ltd