Playwright Accessibility Testing

Playwright Accessibility Testing

Use Playwright plus @axe-core/playwright. Axe helps, but does not prove full WCAG compliance.

Goal

Scan meaningful user states. Fix root causes. Document temporary exclusions.

Rules

• Test critical flows, not only homepage.
• Scan after UI reaches real user state.
• Use AxeBuilder.
• Scope noisy scans with include().
• Avoid exclude() and disableRules() unless justified.
• Snapshot fingerprints only.
• Pair with manual keyboard/focus checks.

Pattern

import { test, expect } from '@playwright/test'
import AxeBuilder from '@axe-core/playwright'

test('home page has no detectable a11y violations', async ({ page }) => {
  await page.goto('/')
  const results = await new AxeBuilder({ page }).analyze()
  expect(results.violations).toEqual([])
})

WCAG tags:

const results = await new AxeBuilder({ page })
  .withTags(['wcag2a', 'wcag2aa', 'wcag21a', 'wcag21aa'])
  .analyze()

Flow

1. Pick critical page or flow.
2. Navigate and interact to target state.
3. Run axe scan.
4. Inspect id, impact, target, failureSummary.
5. Fix label, contrast, ARIA, semantics, or duplicate ID.
6. Rerun test.
7. Report automated limits.

References

• Playwright Accessibility Testing
• axe-core rules

Output

## A11y Test Review

Scope: [page/flow]
Scan state: [when scan runs]
WCAG tags: [tags if used]

Findings:
- [rule id]: [impact], target [selector], fix [change]

Exclusions:
- [selector/rule]: [reason], follow-up [ticket]

Limitations:
- Manual keyboard/focus/screen-reader check still needed.