Author: Rajakrishnan

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Accessibility solutions must be a key component in today’s day and age, yet, brands worldwide fail to incorporate these solutions in their marketing campaigns. This means these brands are depriving themselves of the business they could gain from at least a fifth of their target audience. Inclusive marketing has been the buzzword in the marketing world in recent years. Organizations tend to reach out to audiences across various gender identities and social and economic classes, but they often tend to turn a blind eye to people with disabilities. While this can be a huge financial loophole, it also comes across as ignorant, and no brand wants to be labeled as such. This article will dive into the importance of accessible marketing solutions, why you should implement them, and how you can go about doing so. The Importance of Accessibility-Focused Marketing Solutions Before we dive into what accessible marketing is, here’s a statistic – Failing to incorporate accessibility solutions in your marketing campaigns leads to your business missing out on being able to reach almost a billion people worldwide. Now, you have an idea of how important accessible marketing is. This concept ensures your marketing channels, such as emails, websites, newsletters, and so on, after the needs and conveniences of those with disabilities. One example of an excellent product that catered to the needs of children who were blind or sight impaired in some way were Lego’s Braille Bricks. These were a collection of Lego bricks with braille that aimed to help children read in schools across the United States. What stood out about this campaign is that it not only aimed to reach out to visually impaired children and help them enjoy a process of play-based learning but also learn Braille codes in their native languages. Accessible marketing is crucial for several reasons, some of which are explained below: People With Disabilities Are a Market With Massive Potential According to the Centre for Disease Control (CDC), one in four people in the United States has some form of disability. This translates to a fourth of the country’s population, which is a huge market for a brand to not miss out on. Several studies have also shown that most people with disabilities are heavily disappointed with brands’ websites and the level of accessibility they offer. While this might not come across as a major drawback when put so simply, the reality is that they aren’t afraid to look elsewhere when it comes to spending their money. So, every person your marketing campaign fails to cater to is a potential customer lost. If You don’t Provide, You Lose According to Level Access’ report titled 2021 State of Digital Accessibility, almost 38.6% of employees reported that their product’s accessibility heavily contributed to purchases by their customers. This means that a significant chunk of brands have incorporated accessibility solutions in their marketing channels in some way, which in turn is contributing to increased sales. In such an environment where brands are working on improving their accessibility, one that fails to do so will simply be losing customers to its competition. How Can You Introduce Accessibility Solutions in Your Marketing Plans? The biggest question that would now come to mind is, “How can I make my marketing efforts more accessible to those with disabilities?” The good news is that several brands have already paved the way for several solutions that you can incorporate. However, before we dive into these, it’s essential to remember that accessibility shouldn’t just be a small aspect of your marketing plan but its backbone. Customers can see through shallow initiatives, and a brand introducing a few namesake accessibility solutions won’t do much good in the long run. Having said that, some effective accessibility solutions you could take inspiration from include: Involve the key stakeholders: The first step to incorporating accessible marketing channels is to involve the key stakeholders of this effort in the process. Share your plan with people who are either hearing, visual, or mobility impaired so they can give you feedback on how you can improve or redirect your efforts in the right way. This can go a long way in ensuring you’re not just pushing what you consider to be accessible marketing onto people with disabilities but rather ensuring that these changes are actually effective. Put yourself in your target audience’s shoes: This step can come in handy if you can’t run your campaign by people with disabilities. In this situation, you must understand how a user will have to interact with your website in terms of movement, what they’ll need to see to understand the content, what sound it’ll have to produce so that visually impaired people could benefit from it, and how much time will a user put into understanding your content. With the answers to these questions, you should find yourself closer to creating a more inclusive marketing experience for those who are impaired in some way. Use the right tools: Marketing is no longer manual work that takes hours to implement; the same goes for including more accessible elements in your content. Using the right tools can go a long way in getting you started. For example, a tool like Inclusive Components explores common interface components and presents more accessible versions that you can then implement in your marketing. Another example is Color Oracle, a simulator that shows what a colorblind person sees on their screen when looking at your marketing campaigns. This helps you design content in a manner that makes it easier for them to access. Key Takeaways To summarize, for marketing to be accessible is the need of the hour, not simply because it gives businesses the benefit of reaching a much wider audience but also because it creates a ripple effect in the long term. The more inclusive your brand is, the more goodwill it will generate over the years. People with disabilities have massive spending potential, and failing to cater to their needs will simply lead to them

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Digital transformation has left no niche untouched. Businesses, especially in the IT industry, must now keep up with rapidly evolving digital needs and trends. Software testing and quality assurance teams also need to reimagine their processes and workflows to speed up the throughput. One of the key benefits that come with modernizing quality assurance using QA software testing tools is the automation of the testing process. Both software testing and quality assurance – are steps to achieve the highest product quality possible with the given input variables. With the advent of software testing tools, businesses are able to achieve faster cycle times and better levels of service for their products. A recent survey highlighted that 63% of the surveyed businesses that automated their QA testing experienced better testing ROIs. Automation helps reduce the testing cycle time and reduce the manpower engaged in iterations. With more and more businesses leaning towards hiring full-fledged QA software testing solutions like Hurix (as opposed to open-source solutions), it is evident that quality assurance departments are set to transform drastically. What is QA Software Testing? Software testing can be defined as the testing process which provides assurance that software is functioning the way it was designed to. Setting the benchmarks for optimum software performance, software testing helps businesses see whether software is accurately achieving the set parameters that correspond to the predetermined variables. Software testing tools help automate the entire process, giving your business the following benefits: Reduction in development costs Preventing bugs through continuous testing Better software performance Higher quality product How are QA Software Testing Tools Disrupting Quality Assurance? The quality assurance teams of businesses need to ensure that they deliver high-quality products to clients and customers. They must also stick to stringent development and testing timelines, which make it difficult when the processes are completely manual. With their automation and efficient, continuous testing capabilities, QA software testing tools enable businesses to rapidly complete quality assurance processes and reduce the time to market. A study highlights that for 59% of businesses, the priorities in QA have shifted to using intelligent QA technologies. Software quality assurance encompasses the use and monitoring of effective software engineering processes, best practices, and methodologies that go into developing software. You would notice that the best-performing software on the market today are stable, secure, and fast regardless of the workloads you put them through. QA software testing tools have distinct features that span the entire ecosystem of quality assurance for software development. These tools help businesses speed up software development and market release. Types of Software Testing For comprehensive testing of the quality of software, there are a plethora of tests that must be performed. Let’s take a look at what they are. Integration Testing Each software is made up of several modules that work in tandem to achieve an objective. Integration testing is the phase of QA software testing that measures how each module performs individually. Through this test, businesses can identify the problems modules face while communicating with each other, working as an integrated unit. Functional Testing Software testing involves predetermining the specifications, variables, and certain parameters for the test. Quality assurance teams perform functional testing to check whether software performs as designed based on these predetermined parameters. Some examples of functional testing are smoke testing, regression testing, UI testing, component testing, and API testing. Acceptance Testing The purpose of designing software is to help businesses achieve specific objectives. To that end, accessibility tests are performed to ensure that the software functions as intended and achieves the purpose it is created for. Some examples of this test are user acceptance testing, business acceptance testing, and alpha and beta testing. In simpler words, this test determines whether or not the software is acceptable as a solution to a problem. Performance Testing In the digital age of today, slow software can be crippling for business growth. Every solution must thus be tested for performance efficiencies to gauge how it fares under exceptional circumstances. Quality assurance specialists test the speed, application size, robustness, and reliability of the software during the performance test. QA specialists use parameters like CPU memory use, response times on browsers, etc., to measure the performance of the software. Unit Testing Unit testing is performed during the development stage of software. This test helps QA specialists check whether each unit of the code is working as it should. Since this test is performed during software development, errors and problems can be prevented promptly, saving resources and manpower that would be needed for troubleshooting later. Disruptive Features of QA Software Testing Tools The following features in software testing tools have enabled better quality assurance for businesses: Test Management Quality assurance teams need to be able to plan the software testing from end to end. Since software consists of multiple modules and parts, the approach to test management needs to be systematic. Modern tools are able to orchestrate software testing meticulously, eliminating human errors completely. Automated Testing The automation features of the best QA software testing tools have truly disrupted the quality assurance niche of businesses. Iterative testing and repetitive tasks in a testing cycle can be automated to save manhours. These time savings enable professionals to engage in tasks that require human aptitude. Reporting and Insights Analytics and reporting have become pivotal today to understand the actual, real-world performance of software during QA exercises. Modern QA software testing tools provide in-depth detail into each test and iteration, enabling developers and QA specialists to zero down on problematic areas. Integrability The capability of QA software testing tools to integrate with other CI/CD tools makes it easier to execute the entire process. It drastically reduces the testing cycle times and the times-to-market, which is the need of the hour considering today’s market dynamics. Empower Your QA with Hurix QA software testing tools make it simpler and easier for your business to achieve high quality in the end products. With Hurix, it is possible to completely transform your quality assurance