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Thread: Multi language Testing

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From: Praunicorn
Date: Sun, Sep 22 2019 12:17PM
Subject: Multi language Testing
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Hi All,

This is regarding multi language testing, how we can do the multi language testing in Accessibility testing.

Points which I observed :

1. I am a English user and I will use screen readers to read the content and I can easily validate whether it is reading right or wrong. I am worried about other languages, how to test application if user change the application language in to other language.

My assumption : English user alone can not perform screen reader testing for the other languages, we may require other users who knows the different languages.

2. Do we need to test all the elements in the page in another languages even after testing in English (For Example : Assume that we have fields username, password , etc.. in the login page and we have tested this page with all possible test of accessibility . Do we need to perform the same testing types once after changing the language).

Regards,
Sreekar


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From: Steve Green
Date: Mon, Sep 23 2019 12:19AM
Subject: Re: Multi language Testing
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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


From: Jonathan Avila
Date: Mon, Sep 23 2019 9:48AM
Subject: Re: Multi language Testing
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Additional things that can break are reading order issues when right to left text is used and resize/reflow/contrast/spacing issues that can arise when different languages are used with different lengths for text. For example, text truncation may be more common in situations where the translation produces a longer string of text AND reflow, zoom, or text spacing is applied to the content. I agree that these things and the non-displayed accessibility attributes should really be part of translation testing but it's doubtful they are -- so they fall to accessibility testing.

Jonathan