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Re: Multilingual Web Accessibility Testing Approach

for

From: Praful Sojitra
Date: Aug 11, 2023 12:04PM

Thank you this helps.

Thank you,
Praful

-----Original Message-----
From: glen walker < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Sent: Thursday, August 10, 2023 2:23 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Multilingual Web Accessibility Testing Approach

First off, keep in mind that "foreign language" is relative to the tester.
Just because a site is not in English doesn't mean it's a foreign language.
I know that's just a nit-pick but this forum is international so there are lots of native languages.

Secondly, you asked for the "best approach" for testing a website/app that is in a language not native to the tester. The best approach is to use a tester that is a native language speaker. The second best approach is to use a tester that uses that language as a second (or third) language that they understand.

If no one is available that understands that language, then using a translator is about all you can do. I've done this before but before I accepted the project, I made sure the client knew all the caveats of testing without knowing the language and that the testing takes longer (and thus more expensive).

Assuming the translation is decent (such as using Chrome and auto-translate, which I'm not claiming is "decent" but it's a handy feature), then you *might* be able to test whether text is "descriptive" as it pertains to 1.1.1, 2.4.2, 2.4.6, etc.

Of course, there is testing that can be done regardless of the language, such as contrast, use of color, resize text, focus visible.

So it's possible.


On Thu, Aug 10, 2023 at 7:06 AM Praful Sojitra < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> Hi,
>
> What will the best approach to test the foreign language (non-English)
> web application/websites? Using Google translator will be wise? How to
> handle content which are not translated by Google translator like
> video, images etc.
>
> Any help will be appreciated.
>
> Thank you,
> Praful
>
> > > archives at http://webaim.org/discussion/archives
> >