axe DevTools Mobile October 18, 2023 Release Notes

Component Versions

• axeDevToolsXCUI v2.8.0
• axe-devtools-android v4.2.0

What's New?

Support for WCAG 2.2

WCAG 2.2 was officially released on October 5. Our "Touch Target Spacing" rule has been promoted out of Experimental status. This rule conforms to WCAG 2.2. 2.5.8 and ensures targets meet a minimum size or have sufficient spacing around them. This is important for people with physical impairments who cannot click small buttons that are close together. Learn more about the WCAG 2.2. release. View documentation for the Touch Target Spacing rule for iOS and the Touch Target Spacing rule for Android.

Did you know? The Touch Target Spacing rule (WCAG 2.2, 2.5.8) meets AA standards, whereas the Touch Target Size rule (WCAG 2.1, 2.5.5) meets AAA standards. For important controls, WCAG recommends aiming for the stricter, Touch Target Size rule to meet AAA standards. Deque also recommends aiming for the stricter rule on mobile because it enforces compliance with Apple's 44ptx44pt guideline and more closely aligns with Google's 48dpx48dp guideline to ensure there are no issues when submitting your app to the app stores.

Important Change - Only Scan Visible Views

axe DevTools Mobile will now only scan views that are visible to the user at the time of the scan. Previously, the default was to scan all views, even those which were off-screen or hidden by other views.

How does this improve results?

• By only scanning what's visible to the user, the results more accurately reflect the user experience of someone with a disability or someone using assistive technology. Anything behind a dialog or modal that can't be reached by the user or by assistive technology will not be scanned.
• Computer vision rules, such as color contrast, do not run on views that are offscreen, so previously, offscreen views only received results from a limited ruleset. By only scanning views within the bounds of the screen, you can rest assured that any scanned views are benefiting from the full ruleset.

What does this mean for your team?

If you currently have the boxes for "Issue Filtering" on the Dashboard unchecked, you won't notice any difference in your Dashboard results. Views which aren't visible to the user are already excluded from your results.

Otherwise, once you upgrade to axeDevToolsXCUI v2.8.0 and axe-devtools-android v4.2.0:

• Views that are hidden behind other views, such as modals or popups, will not have accessibility results.
• Views that are offscreen, such as those above or below the current scroll position, will not have accessibility results.
  • Tip: Take a scan at each scroll position of a long screen to ensure that you capture all accessibility issues. For example, if your app’s home screen spans 3 screens, you would take 3 scans as shown below:
    
  • For long screens with a repeated type of view, such as a list, multiple scans at each scroll position may not be necessary. A single scan of the first viewable area will likely capture the recurring accessibility issues.

iOS

• The Associated Text rule has been promoted out of experimental status. This rule ensures that a control gets its accessible name from a nearby label available for assistive technologies such as VoiceOver and Voice Control.
• The Color Contrast rule received an improvement to grab an estimated font size and further improve the accuracy of results. This change means results for some scenarios will now report 'Pass' or 'Fail' status instead of 'Needs Review'.

Android

• Breaking Change in Custom Rules - The interface for running custom rules in Android received an update to return a RunRuleResult object instead of a String type. View a full example of the change or more information on custom rules in Android.
• After careful review, we've decided to remove the experimental Hidden View Rules from our library - Hidden Active View Focus and Hidden Informative View Focus. These experimental rules have gone through many iterations as we've gathered feedback over two years. We've found that automating these rules has the potential to return false positives, and therefore decided to remove them from our automated ruleset to support our commitment to 0 false positives. With this release, we've moved the Hidden View Rules to the "ignored" status. They will no longer appear in your "failed" or "passed" result count. In our next release (date to be determined) they will be fully removed from the library.
• We've added more descriptive summaries to rules to better describe why they are marked as Passed, Failed, or Needs Review.
• The Compose APIs now accept ComposeEmptyTestRule to launch an activity using ActivityScenario. This can be easier than using AndroidComposeTestRule, especially when using both XML and Compose views together. Learn more about using Compose Empty Test Rule.
• With this release, we upgraded from Kotlin version 1.7 to Kotlin 1.9 to ensure our libraries remain compatible with the latest versions of Jetpack Compose. Kotlin version 1.9 has backwards compatibility with Kotlin 1.8 and above. If your app relies on a Kotlin version less than 1.8, please continue to use axe-devtools-android v4.1.0 or lower.
• We upgraded from Moshi 1.12.0 to 1.15.0 and Jetpack Compose 1.4.3 to 1.5.1.

Bug Fixes

iOS

• Tough Target Spacing received some updates to handle edge cases of hidden controls and completely overlapping elements.
• Improvements around detecting accessibility elements in edge cases which will improve result accuracy for various rules testing controls.
• Supports Dynamic Type rule will not run on controls without visible text.
• The framework no longer freezes on Picker elements. No changes in results are expected as there are no current rules targeting Picker elements. We will look for opportunities moving forward.

Android

• We've added human-readable screen orientation properties to the analyzed values for the Screen Orientation rule. Previously, these were integer values that couldn't be easily understood by the person reviewing the results.
• You can now update the custom rules list when using layout-agnostic scanning via the Instrumentation Registry.

Dashboard

• Accessibility improvements to the tree view in the "Inspect" feature. You can now navigate the tree view successfully using a keyboard or assistive technology.

Known Issues

If you're experiencing any of the below issues, please contact us at helpdesk@deque.com or support.deque.com. We will then be able to notify you once it's resolved or of an identified workaround if none is listed.

axe DevTools Mobile for iOS

axe DevTools Mobile for Android

implementation 'androidx.core:core-ktx:1.9.0'
implementation 'org.jetbrains.kotlinx:kotlinx-coroutines-core:1.6.4'
implementation 'org.jetbrains.kotlinx:kotlinx-coroutines-android:1.6.4'
	

Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException: throw with null exception
at g.b.b.a$a.a(Unknown Source:1)
at g.b.b.a$a.a(Unknown Source:0)
at g.b.b.a.a(AccessToken.java:190)
	

axe DevTools Mobile Dashboard