Automated Intelligent Guided Testing
Overview
Automated Intelligent Guided Testing (IGT) uses artificial intelligence to automate accessibility assessments, significantly reducing the time and effort required to complete comprehensive accessibility tests. Instead of manually answering questions and performing actions throughout the IGT workflow, AI analyzes your page and automatically provides answers based on what it observes. You then review AI's decisions, make any necessary corrections, and complete your test with confidence.
This human-centric approach to AI-powered testing ensures you maintain control over your results while benefiting from automation. By reviewing AI's reasoning for each decision, you gain insights into the accessibility characteristics of your page and can verify the accuracy of the findings.
Key Benefits
- Save time: AI automatically completes IGT steps that would otherwise require manual input
- Increase confidence: Review AI's reasoning to understand and validate each decision
- Maintain control: Correct any AI assessments before finalizing your results
How Automated IGTs Work
- Start an IGT: Enable automated IGT mode by checking the "Enable automated IGT" checkbox
- AI analyzes your page: AI examines the page elements, taking screenshots and gathering context to make informed decisions
- Review results: AI presents its findings organized by element, showing pass/fail status and reasoning for each assessment
- Make corrections: Review and correct any AI decisions that need adjustment to ensure accuracy
- Complete your test: Finalize the IGT with verified results that reflect both AI automation and your expert review
Some IGTs include an additional step before AI analysis begins, where you select which elements or items you want to test. This lets you scope your test to focus on what matters most. See the documentation for each individual IGT for details on how automated mode works for that specific test.
AI Credits
Automated IGT runs consume AI credits from your enterprise's monthly allocation. Traditional IGT workflows and existing AI classification features (such as ML-suggested roles for interactive elements, keyboard tab stops, table headers, and form label/input pairing) remain available as part of your axe DevTools Pro subscription and do not consume AI credits.
For more information about AI credit management, usage tracking, and purchasing additional credits, see the AI Credits documentation.
Prerequisites
- axe DevTools Extension (Pro) or axe DevTools for Web subscription
- AI Features enabled in Settings (Settings > AI Features)
- Available AI credits in your enterprise allocation
Running an Automated IGT
Starting an Automated IGT
- Open axe DevTools Extension
- Select a saved test or create a new one
- Choose the IGT you'd like to run
- On the start screen, check the Enable automated IGT checkbox (will be disabled if no AI credits remain)
- Click Start to begin the automated analysis
AI will automatically analyze the page and complete the IGT steps. Depending on the complexity of your page, this may take several seconds to complete.
Reviewing AI Results
After AI completes its analysis, you'll see a review screen organized by element:
- Element list: Each tested element appears as an expandable item showing overall pass/fail status
- Individual checks: Within each element, individual checked rules (such as name, role, or state) show their own pass/fail status
- AI reasoning: Each check displays Why AI made this recommendation, helping you understand the reasoning behind the assessment
- Pass/Fail indicators:
- Element fails if one or more checks fail
- Element passes if all checks pass
Making Corrections
How you correct AI decisions depends on the IGT:
Interactive Elements IGT — Click Edit result for the check you want to modify, update the answer or selection, and results update immediately.
All other IGTs — Each rule check shows a correction button based on its current result:
- Mark as passed: Appears on failed rule checks — click to change the result to passed
- Mark as failed: Appears on passed rule checks — click to change the result to failed
Results update immediately to reflect your change.
Your corrections ensure the final results accurately represent the accessibility state of your page.
Completing the Test
Once you've reviewed AI's assessments (making any necessary edits):
- Click Finish to complete the IGT
- View your comprehensive test results in the issues view
- Export results or share reports as needed
Automated Interactive Elements IGT
The Interactive Elements IGT is the first IGT to support being automated. In this IGT, AI automatically assesses the accessible name, role, and state of interactive elements on your page.
What AI Automates
For each interactive element, AI automatically determines:
- Accessible name: The text or label that identifies the element to assistive technologies
- Role: The semantic meaning of the element (button, link, checkbox, etc.)
- State: The current condition of the element (checked, expanded, pressed, etc.)
Automated Keyboard IGT
The Keyboard IGT supports automated mode. AI automatically evaluates keyboard accessibility across your page's tab stops after the auto-tabbing phase completes.
What AI Automates
After auto-tabbing records your page's tab order, AI automatically checks each tab stop for:
- Focus indicator presence: Whether a visible focus indicator appears when the element receives focus
- Tab stop role: The semantic role of the focused element and whether it accurately conveys its purpose
- Visibility: Whether elements are properly visible and usable in their focused state
- Missing tab stops: Elements expected to be keyboard-reachable that were not found in the tab order
- Keyboard traps: Points in the tab order where focus cannot move away, with automatic escape attempts
AI Analysis Summary
After AI completes its analysis, you'll see an AI analysis summary showing the total number of elements analyzed, along with a breakdown of how many passed all checked rules and how many failed at least one.
Completing the Test
After reviewing AI results and making any corrections:
- Click Next to proceed
- Review the list of violations found
- Click Finish to finalize your results
Settings
Automated IGTs respect your AI Features setting:
- Navigate to Settings > AI-Powered Features
- Ensure AI-Powered Features is enabled
- When disabled, AI-Assisted mode will not be available for IGTs
Existing AI classification features (ML-suggested roles, keyboard tab stops, table headers, and form label/input pairing) continue to function according to your AI Features setting and do not consume AI credits.
Best Practices
- Review carefully: While AI is highly accurate, always review results before finalizing, especially for complex or custom components
- Understand reasoning: Read AI's explanations to gain insights into accessibility characteristics and validation logic
- Establish baselines: Use automated mode for initial comprehensive tests, then leverage Auto Replay for regression testing
- Monitor credits: Keep track of your enterprise's AI credit usage to ensure availability for critical testing periods
- Provide corrections: When AI makes errors, correct them to ensure accurate results—this helps maintain the integrity of your accessibility testing program
Troubleshooting
Automated option is not available
- Verify AI-Powered Features is enabled in Settings
- Confirm your enterprise has available AI credits
- Check that you have an active axe DevTools Extension (Pro) or axe DevTools for Web subscription
AI analysis is taking longer than expected
- Complex pages with many elements require more processing time
- Network conditions may affect AI analysis performance
- Consider testing fewer elements when possible
Credits depleted during IGT
If your enterprise's AI credits are exhausted during an AI-assisted IGT run, the analysis will complete. You will not be charged credits for any overages incurred.