App Updates: Visualization Tables and Other Spring Updates

Easier Global Observation Visibility

All global observations are now listed in a new “Global Observations” section in the audit page just below the current Target Sample observations. This way you tell at a glance whether an observation you’re about to add has already been accounted for globally.

Additionally, all observations also now have a new “Target Sample” meta field that specifies the sample so there’s no longer any ambiguity of where it originated.

Observation Form Updates

To make success criteria selection easier, there’s now typeahead functionality for that field. The hope is that you can now get to the criteria you’re looking for either by typing out the criterion number (1.4.3 for example) or by a keyword in the criterion name (“Contrast” for example).

Two new optional fields have been added to the Categorization section of the observation form, “Page Component” and “Audit Theme”. The “Page Component” field is to optionally track the page component name that the observation relates to, making it easier to sort by component so you can potentially bundle remediation of multiple observations together. The “Audit Theme” field is similar to “Page Component” but is intended to be for any other additional information you’d like to use to categorize observations not covered by another field. Both “Page Component” and “Audit Theme” also have typeahead functionality to make it easier to reuse the same values in your audit.

Finally, there’s now also an “Other/Unrelated” Success Criterion option for cases where you’d like to also track other nice to haves or details about a user experience problem that may not necessarily be a requirement for conformance but would still be helpful to remediate.

Audit Percent Complete Refined

While audits are in progress, there’s a percentage complete graphic for each of them on your dashboard to help you get a sense for how many more criteria you have to validate. That percentage is now calculated more often, and has been refined to better account for your WCAG version and level conformance target.

Results Document Additions

In addition to seeing a breakdown of pass, fail, and not present by principle, we’ve added the same breakdown for each success criterion too and placed them all in expandable accordions along with the data by principle. Handy for a more granular view of the data on larger audits especially.

Observation Visualization Table

Last but certainly not least! A lot of work has gone into refining the discoverability and visualization aspect of observations, so much so that a whole separate page was introduced to contain it all. It’s called the Observation Visualization table and you can now get to it from the results document page.

This new page itemizes key data of every observation in a tabular format complete with filtering and sorting. For example, you can search for “Designer” to filter all observations with designers as the responsible party. It’s still a little rough around the edges but I’m releasing it as soon as possible because I believe it’s a powerful addition to the overall data visualization and would like to get some real usage feedback on it. If you give Observation Visualization tables a try, please do reach out with any feedback!

Other Minor Updates

• Dark mode toggle added to all pages (no longer necessary to be logged in to toggle from your profile)
• More Testing Tools and Technologies added to the typeahead
• Performance & Security improvements including a full upgrade of underlying technologies