Accessibility Testing - Should it be considered functional testing or non functional testing?

Question

Well, I am not going to say what falls in functional/non-functional testing as it might vary in your work place. But if you carry out a11y testing then do you have it marked as functional testing or non functional testing?

Answer 1

In traditional models, accessibility falls under non-functional testing; however, because in commercial software accessibility often falls under legal or regulatory requirements it may also be considered functional but, not all software is commercial software or needs to comply with governmental regulations

I like the following definitions from http://www.lessons-from-history.com/node/83 "a functional requirement specifies what the system should do" "a non-functional requirement specifies how the system should behave"

Answer 2

I think that it would depend on the industry and the deployment of the application as to how you treat it. For example, it may be irrelevant for an internal only tool, but completely relevant if you are the website of the Olympic Games and don't want to get sued.

(The Sydney 2000 Organising Committee lost a lawsuit for failing to cater for users who could not access a visual version of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games website.)

Like Jeff Atwood treats performance (as a feature) I would treat it like a feature, and test it as such.

Answer 3

Objective of Accessibility Testing is to ensure the application / website being tested are usable by people with disabilities which falls under functional testing. I guess it should be considered as functional testing.

Answer 4

I think its for this exact reason that Cem Kaner came up with the term "Para-functional Testing"

Some discussion on it here & here & here