Mercury Interactive Corporation, a leading provider of enterprise testing and performance management solutions, today announced an automated testing solution to help federal agencies ensure that their Web sites meet the requirements of Section 508, an amendment to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. The amendment intends to improve opportunities for employment, independence and self-sufficiency for people with disabilities by ensuring federal agency technologies and Web sites are equally accessible to all people, including those with vision or hearing disabilities.
Starting June 21, federal agencies purchasing electronic and information technology products must ensure they meet the standards for usage by people with a wide range of disabilities. Federal agencies can take advantage of new features included in Mercury Interactive's Astra QuickTest 5.5, and QuickTest Professional 5.5, functional and regression testing tools to identify the areas of noncompliance with the standards set in Section 508. The products also provide users with a list of pass and fail checks for application objects.
While current government Web sites need to be systematically checked to ensure that they are fully accessible by disabled users, new Web sites moving forward need to be examined to ensure they meet accessibility standards before they are launched.
"Testing for Section 508 compliance is critical and will be an ongoing issue for federal agencies," said Alina Eidinova, senior product marketing manager at Mercury Interactive. "The QuickTest products enable agencies to immediately pinpoint which applications are not fully compliant thereby saving agencies time and money."
Astra QuickTest and QuickTest Professional are icon-based tools that allow novice and expert testers to validate dynamically changing Web and Java applications. They quickly create interactive maintainable tests by mirroring end-user behavior and shorten the testing cycle for even the most complex Web and Java environments.
With their enabling technology, ActiveScreen, Astra QuickTest and QuickTest Professional replace traditional test scripts with graphical icons and screen capture. This icon-based testing approach bridges the gap between testers and business analysts by allowing users with limited technical knowledge to create robust data-driven tests with little to no learning curve. In addition, the functional test scripts recorded in Astra QuickTest and QuickTest Professional can be easily replayed in LoadRunner, the industry-standard load-testing tool, to predict the behavior and performance of technology solutions under a real-life user load. The tests and test results can also be integrated with TestDirector, Mercury Interactive's global test management solution for easy reporting and analysis of compliance status.