Open sourcing GTXiLib, an accessibility test automation framework for iOS

Google believes everyone should be able to access and enjoy the web. We share guidance on building accessible tech over at Google Accessibility and we recently launched a dedicated disability support team. Today, we’re excited to announce that we’ve open sourced GTXiLib, an accessibility test automation framework for iOS, under the Apache license.

We want our products to be accessible and automation, with frameworks like GTXiLib, is one of the ways we scale our accessibility testing. GTXiLib can automate the process of checking for some kinds of issues such as missing labels, hints, or low contrast text.

GTXiLib is written in Objective-C and will integrate with your existing XCTests to perform all the registered accessibility checks before the test tearDown. When the checks fail, the existing test fails as well. Fixing your tests will thus lead to better accessibility and your tests can catch new accessibility issues as well.

• Reuse your tests: GTXiLib integrates into your existing functional tests, enhancing the value of any tests that you have or any that you write.
• Incremental accessibility testing: GTXiLib can be installed onto a single test case, test class or a specific subset of tests giving you the freedom to add accessibility testing incrementally. This helped drive GTXiLib adoption in large projects at Google.
• Author your own checks: GTXiLib has a simple API to create custom checks based on the specific needs of your app. For example, you can ensure every button in your app has an accessibilityHint using a custom check.

Do you also care about accessibility? Help us sharpen GTXiLib by suggesting a check or better yet, writing one. You can add GTXiLib to your project using CocoaPods or by using its Xcode project file.

We hope you find this useful and look forward to feedback and contributions from the community! Please check out the README for more information.

By Siddartha Janga, Google Central Accessibility Team