Test Automation - How To Perform Automated Accessibility Checks Using Playwright Python And Axe

Introduction

In today's digital landscape, ensuring web accessibility is not just a moral obligation but a crucial aspect of delivering inclusive experiences to users with diverse needs. Playwright , a powerful browser automation tool, coupled with the Axe accessibility testing library , provides a robust solution for automating accessibility checks during your testing pipeline. By integrating these two powerful tools, you can proactively identify and address accessibility issues.

The solution presented in this article is exemplified in my Playwright Python example project , developed in collaboration with Elias Shourosh .

Implementing the Solution

The AxeHelper class contains the check_accessibility the method that runs Axe on a given Playwright page, checks for accessibility violations based on the specified maximum allowed violations per impact level, and provides detailed reporting.

The solution code can be found here .

the conftest file defines a pytest fixture that creates an instance of AxeHelper with Axe initialized. This fixture has a session scope, meaning it's created once per test session and shared across all tests.

Test Usage

The test usage can be found here .

The first test, test_accessibility_default_counts, invokes the check_accessibility method of the axe_playwright fixture, which scans the given page for accessibility violations, allowing no violations of any impact level. The second test, test_accessibility_custom_counts, demonstrates how to customize the maximum allowed violations per impact level using the maximum_allowed_violations_by_impact parameter.

In conclusion

Integrating Axe with Playwright empowers automation engineers to incorporate accessibility testing into their workflows seamlessly.

Happy testing!