Keyboard Intelligent Guided Test

The Keyboard IGT walks you through the testing of your page's tab stops. By automating the tab order analysis, this test can detect complex accessibility issues with very little time and effort.

How it works

The first thing you will have to do is put the page in the state you want to test. After that, a few simple questions will guide you through completion of accessibility tests that determine keyboard accessibility. The Keyboard IGT will automatically tab through all elements and record all the tabstops.

Step 1: Auto-tabber

Once "START" is clicked, the Keyboard IGT kicks off its automated tabbing, which tabs through the page's natural tab order highlighting each tab stop along the way. Once the end of the tab order is detected, a "Tabbing complete" message will be rendered along with the number of tab stops recorded.

Step 2: Missing

Are there any elements that you expected to be in the tab order but were not?

Once the automated tabbing has been recorded, and you have reviewed each tab stop, you can select any elements that are missing from the tab order.

Step 3: Alternative

We’ve detected some elements which were skipped in the tab order. Do each of the following have a way to use the same functionality using only the keyboard?

The Keyboard IGT attempts to predict elements that should be in the tab order based on a number of heuristics. If your page contains any of these, you will be able to review them and determine if the given skipped element has an alternative (an element which performs the same action) that was in the tab order.

Step 4: Purpose

We’ve detected some elements in the tab order which lack a role which indicates interactivity to assistive technology.

If any elements in the tab order lack an interactive role, you will be asked to review each of them. If the element is interactive in any way, meaning it has functionality trigged by clicking, hovering, focusing or any user interaction, select "Element is interactive". If the element is a scrollable region, which need to be focusable so keyboard-only users can scroll the region, select "Element is a scrollable region". Otherwise, select "Element is neither interactive nor scrollable".

That's it. You've successfully performed most of keyboard accessibility testing. Fix the issues found and you will have eliminated the most challenging issues for greater than 1 out of 5 of your users!

Running in Automated Mode

When automated IGT mode is enabled, the Keyboard IGT uses AI to automatically analyze your page's tab stops after auto-tabbing completes.

Automated mode: Auto-tabber phase

The IGT begins with the same automated tabbing as the standard Keyboard IGT — tabbing through the page's natural tab order and recording each tab stop. Once tabbing is complete, AI immediately begins its analysis.

Automated mode: AI analysis phase

AI automatically evaluates each recorded tab stop for focus indicator presence, role, and visibility. It also checks for missing tab stops and detects any keyboard traps, attempting to escape them automatically.

Once analysis is complete, you'll see an AI analysis summary with the total number of elements analyzed along with a breakdown of passed and failed results. From there, you can review AI's findings, make any corrections, and finalize your test. See Automated IGTs for details on reviewing results, making corrections, and completing your test.

What it tests for

The Keyboard IGT tests for:

• Focus indicator presence
• Color contrast issues for each tab stop in its focused state
• Hidden items that do not receive focus
• Focus shifts to the new window when a new window is launched
• Focus on an element doesn't cause an unexpected change
• Keyboard traps