Must-Use Mobile Accessibility Testing Tools in 2025
Sarah Thomas
Posted on November 22, 2024
Accessibility in mobile apps is more important than ever. Over one billion people worldwide live with disabilities. This is significant as digital accessibility affects 20% of the global population.
By addressing these accessibility challenges, businesses can tap into an underserved audience while promoting inclusivity. Inclusivity matters. User experience matters. Compliance matters. But where do you start?
Mobile app accessibility testing tools ensure your application is usable by people with varying abilities. It helps you adhere to standards like the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and prepare for regulations such as the European Accessibility Act.
This article walks through essential mobile accessibility testing tools in 2025. From test platforms like BrowserStack, which excels in real-world accessibility testing, to AI-driven tools like Evinced, we’ll cover key features that set these solutions apart and recommend the best options to improve your overall a11y testing strategy.
Must-use mobile accessibility testing tools List (with key features)
1. BrowserStack
BrowserStack is one of the best mobile accessibility testing tools to ensure your applications effortlessly meet WCAG compliance. With its powerful rule engine, BrowserStack helps identify accessibility issues, from basic to complex violations. You can audit mobile apps for common issues such as insufficient accessibility labels and improper touch target sizes. It also detects advanced violations related to color contrast, screen orientation, and text resizing.
The platform offers 5x faster workflow scans and organizes identified issues by type and WCAG violations. It also provides actionable resolution steps in an intelligent reporting dashboard.
Key features
- WCAG compliance focus: Designed to help achieve WCAG compliance, BrowserStack simplifies the process of building inclusive mobile applications through precise accessibility scans and detailed reports.
- Proprietary Rule Engine: Utilizes a proprietary rule engine that offers unmatched coverage for identifying both common and advanced WCAG violations, such as insufficient accessibility labels, improper touch target sizes, color contrast issues, screen orientation, and text resizing.
- Unified workflow for various App Types: Supports scanning for native, cross-platform, and hybrid apps within a single workflow, making it versatile for different development environments.
- Instant testing with zero setup: Users can upload their apps and start testing immediately without any setup requirements, streamlining the accessibility testing process.
- Screen readers on demand: Enables users to navigate apps like real users by performing targeted accessibility scans using TalkBack and VoiceOver, capturing issues through screenshots and recordings.
- 5x faster workflow scans: Promises significantly faster scanning capabilities compared to traditional methods, enhancing efficiency in the testing process.
- Intelligent reporting dashboard: Provides access to all reports from a single dashboard that includes detailed descriptions and annotated screenshots of identified issues.
- Prioritized issue identification: Issues are grouped by type and WCAG violations, allowing users to prioritize remediation efforts easily with actionable steps provided for each identified issue.
- Enhanced debugging capabilities: The tool offers enhanced debugging features that assist developers in understanding and resolving accessibility problems effectively.
2. Google Accessibility Scanner
Google Accessibility Scanner checks Android apps for accessibility issues like missing content labels, small touch targets, low-contrast text, and unhelpful link text. The tool provides recommendations based on WCAG guidelines so developers can make their app accessible from the start.
While the tool is handy for finding and resolving common accessibility issues it does not cover advanced accessibility features like keyboard navigation, focus management, or ARIA roles and properties.
Key features:
A User-friendly interface allows not just developers but anyone to
- Quickly identify accessibility improvements within an app.
- Snapshot and recording options are available for taking a snapshot of a single screen or recording a workflow within the app to analyze multiple screens.
- View by screen and view by category functions for viewing suggestions either by specific screens or categorized by type (e.g., touch target size, contrast issues, etc.).
3. Apple XCode Inspector
The Accessibility Inspector from Apple, included in Xcode, is a detailed tool for mobile accessibility testing of iOS apps. Developers can simulate and test their app’s accessibility by inspecting elements for VoiceOver, Dynamic Text, and contrast ratios based on WCAG guidelines.
XCode inspector offers VoiceOver Simulation to read out app elements for identifying if descriptions mentioned for the UI are meaningful and informative. It helps to make your app accessible to users with disabilities.
Apart from that the Accessibility Inspector offers a complete audit of the app’s UI elements. Also as you make changes to your app the tool offers immediate feedback on accessibility issues.
However, the Accessibility Inspector can crash unexpectedly, particularly when interacting with certain features like the audit preview windows.
Key features:
- VoiceOver simulation to highlight potential usability challenges for users with visual impairments.
- Comprehensive auditing capabilities for generating a list of potential accessibility issues and optimizations to improve compliance.
- Accessibility verifier to check the integrity of the accessibility hierarchy and ensure all elements are correctly linked and accessible.
- Accessibility Inspector’s APIs for creating custom checks targeted to specific app elements.
4. Deque (aXe DevTools)
Deque (aXe DevTools) helps conduct automated testing to find out common accessibility issues with a single click. The tool offers Intelligent Guided Testing. It includes a series of simple questions to identify complex accessibility issues that may get overlooked in automated tests.
With Component-Level testing, developers can focus on a specific part of the page making things easier to manage and resolve issues related to a particular component.
Deque is designed to minimize false positives and highlight accessibility issues promptly. However, the tool lacks contextual understanding of the elements and may flag missing labels or poor contrast without assessing whether the labels are meaningful or the overall user experience is accessible.
Key features:
- Automated accessibility testing for quickly identifying common accessibility issues.
- Intelligent Guided Testing offers a question-and-answer format and uses machine learning for enhanced issue detection without needing extensive accessibility expertise.
- Comprehensive reporting with descriptions of identified issues, resolution guides, and an accessibility score.
- ARIA validation checks to ensure proper use of ARIA roles and attributes.
5. Evinced
Evinced creates actionable reports with a single click while highlighting the accessibility violations and recommendations for fixes. With the mobile accessibility testing tool, you can implement Advanced Rule Set beyond standard vendor accessibility API to identify more critical issues affecting the app's accessibility.
Also, developers can test applications on Evinced without having access to the source code. You can use Evinced to detect issues such as missing traits, insufficient color contrast, small touch targets, and other interactive elements that are not accessible to assistive technologies.
However, Envinced does not allow customizing tests on an ad hoc basis. For example, if a test gives false positives or in case you want to focus on a specific WCAG level you can't turn off the test or adjust it within the interface.
Key features
- AI-powered testing using artificial intelligence and machine learning to see user interfaces as a sighted person and enhance critical problem detection.
- Actionable recommendations with detailed resolution steps including links to relevant WCAG guidelines and code samples.
- Unit tester tool to embed WCAG checks directly in component tests.
- Design Assistant to validate accessibility within design tools like Figma to streamline the handoff between design and development.
6. GTXiLib
GTXiLib offers a simple API to create custom accessibility checks. You can install the app on a single test case, a test class, or even on a specific subset of tests. The platform seamlessly integrates with XCTest, allowing existing test cases to double as accessibility tests without any additional code changes. The tool offers detailed feedback on accessibility violations.
While GTXiLib supports incremental accessibility testing adding it to an ongoing project can cause many test failures. It can be time-consuming and tedious to address all the issues at once.
Key features
- Integration with XCTest allows existing test cases to double as accessibility tests without additional code changes.
- Cross-platform testing focused on mobile app accessibility testing across various platforms.
- Easy setup to let you add to a project using CocoaPods with minimal setup required.
7. Abra Cloud
Abra Cloud is a cloud-based accessibility testing tool best for working within a shared environment. It allows users to work together seamlessly, promoting a collective responsibility for meeting accessibility standards.
It offers essential reporting features to track progress and highlight areas that need attention. Designed keeping usability in mind Abra Cloud comes with an interactive interface and easily integrates with CI/CD tools such as Jenkins, CircleCI, and different version control platforms.
While Abra Cloud makes teamwork easy for app testers, the reporting capabilities could be more detailed. In fact, it limits insights into specific accessibility challenges. Apart from that, the tool has some performance issues while testing extensively, especially in large apps.
Key features
- Collaborative feature enables teams to work together on accessibility testing efforts, promoting a shared responsibility for accessibility.
- Reporting tools for tracking progress and reporting on accessibility status, facilitating communication among team members.
- Cloud-based solution allows remote access and collaboration without requiring local installations.
8. Grayscale
Grayscale can assess color contrast in designs, to ensure compliance with accessibility standards. The mobile accessibility testing tool offers visual simulations that illustrate how users perceive the app.
It is straightforward making it accessible for both designers and developers alike. You can convert designs to grayscale to identify areas where contrast may be insufficient for users with visual impairments.
However, Grayscale primarily focuses on color contrast assessment and lacks features to address other accessibility issues. Also, the tool does not support automation you need to run the accessibility tests manually.
Key features
- Color contrast analysis for assessing color contrast in designs and ensure compliance with accessibility standards.
- Visual simulations to visualize how users with visual impairments perceive the app, aiding in design decisions.
- User-friendly interface designed for ease of use, making it accessible for designers and developers alike.
9. ColorSlurp
ColorSlurp offers a one-click solution to adjust color contrast and quickly modify background or foreground colors to meet accessibility requirements. Additionally, the tool features a camera color picker that detects dominant colors in the environment automatically, making it easy to create palettes from real-world objects.
It has a Color Contrast Checker tool that instantly checks the contrast between two colors to ensure compliance with web standards such as WCAG and APCA. You can export color palettes in various formats, including CSS, Sass, Swift, HTML, and JSON for easy integration with your development workflows
While it excels in color selection and contrast checking, it lacks advanced accessibility testing functionalities.
Key features
- Precision color picker allows users to pick any color on their screen using a high-precision magnifier.
- Palette management facilitates the creation and organization of color palettes, enabling easy naming and saving of colors.
- Color contrast checker instantly checks the contrast of two colors against web standards such as WCAG, helping identify potential issues quickly.
- Camera color picker to pick colors using device camera, automatically identifying dominant colors or allowing manual selection.
10. UBKAccessibilityKit by UBank
UBKAccessibilityKit is a comprehensive tool designed to improve the accessibility of iOS applications. Developers can conduct thorough checks for missing accessibility labels, traits, hints, and button sizes directly within their apps.
The kit features live changes and auditing capabilities, allowing real-time modifications while assessing compliance. Additionally, it generates detailed accessibility reports in PDF format from app screenshots for easy sharing with team members.
However, as an open-source framework, the accessibility testing tool needs better documentation that would assist new developers in utilizing its full potential effectively.
Key features
- Live changes and auditing for making live changes to text and colors in an iOS app while auditing its accessibility features directly on the device.
- Color contrast checking between UI elements to ensure compliance with accessibility standards.
- Accessibility report generation for creating accessibility report PDF from a screengrab of the app view, which is easily shareable with team members.
- Open source framework available under the Apache 2.0 license.
Which Mobile Accessibility Testing Tools would I recommend?
While finding mobile accessibility testing tools it's important to look for solutions that perfectly align with your app's complexity and compliance requirements.
Among the tools that we have highlighted in this article,
BrowserStack stands out for its all-encompassing approach to accessibility testing.
For teams focused on Android app accessibility Google Accessibility Scanner is perfect. However, it lacks more advanced testing capabilities, making it more of a supplementary option rather than a primary tool.
On the other hand, Apple’s XCode Inspector is indispensable for iOS developers.
But, for companies that prioritize seamless integration with automation frameworks and want to maintain accessibility at scale, BrowserStack is the ideal platform. However, if your project is more specific to either iOS or Android, or you need additional context-aware testing, a combination of tools might be the best approach.
Posted on November 22, 2024
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