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feat: a11y testing setup - #3177

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@matthewlipski matthewlipski commented Oct 9, 2026 •

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Summary

This PR shows a vertical slice of the a11y areas we need to test. It's based on the a11y study done earlier. It's recommended to get familiarised with that first. The documents from the study are also temporarily included as Markdown files in the git branch.

The general approach was to colocate a11y test files with the components they test. The tests all require using a browser environment due to one of the following:

  1. Test uses axe-core, which requires a real DOM tree to scan.
  2. Test uses GuidePup to test screen reader output, which requires a browser to use a screen reader with.
  3. Test uses Playwright visual snapshots, which require rendering components in a browser.
  4. Test requires browser keyboard navigation/focus handling.

The test runner itself is Vitest Browser Mode, which is in line with a lot of our existing browser tests and uses Playwright for the browser.

Below is a summary of the tested a11y areas. For each type of test:

🟢 Tests are implemented and passing.
🟡 Tests are implemented and passing, but snapshots are at least partially incorrect.
🔴 Tests aren't implemented as the functionality being tested is missing, or are implemented but failing.

Editor Content

These tests are for making sure the editor content is broadly accessible, covering keyboard navigation, focus handling, legibility, and screen reader support.

BlockNoteView.a11y.spec.ts

  • General
    • 🔴 Ensure that running an axe-core check doesn't yield any errors for an editor with a document with content containing everything in the default schema.
      • There are quite a lot of various errors.
  • Document keyboard navigation
    • 🟡 Navigate through a document using only the arrow keys, including navigating through each cell in a table. Ensure that additional information e.g. block type/nesting level/etc is announced to the user during navigation, using screen reader transcripts generated by GuidePup.
      • Arrow key navigation works without issues, but a lot of information regarding markup and document structure is missing from screen reader transcripts.
  • Focus handling
    • 🟢 Ensure that as the user navigates through interactive elements in a page using Tab, the user can continue immediately to the next element when focus lands on the editor, rather than being trapped within the editor.
      • When the editor is focused, the user can hit Escape to revert focus to <body> and pressing Tab moves focus to the next interactive element in the page. This works for now but will have to be revisited when fixing the selection handling (see below).
  • Selection handling
    • 🔴 Ensure that the editor can be focused without a selection, allowing Tab and arrow keys navigate the page rather than navigating the editor.
      • While the user can hit Escape to revert focus to <body>, it's not quite what we want as they cannot e.g. press Enter to then refocus the editor.
    • 🔴 Ensure that the current selection can be extended to wrap the entire block using the keyboard.
      • Selecting entire blocks is possible using Cmd+Click, but not using the keyboard, so only a stub is included for this test.
    • 🔴 Ensure that the type of selection is communicated by a screen reader using transcripts generated by GuidePup.
      • Selecting entire blocks is not possible using the keyboard, so only stubs is included for these tests.
      • TODO: add tests for other selection types (text selection, whole document selection, block without inline content selection).
    • 🔴 Ensure that selection state is communicated visually using Playwright visual snapshots.
      • Selecting entire blocks is not possible using the keyboard, so only stubs is included for these tests.
      • TODO: add tests for other selection types (text selection, whole document selection, block without inline content selection).
  • Legibility
    • 🟢 Ensure that all a document with content containing everything in the default schema remains legible and doesn't clip content, when text spacing is overridden to that defined by WCAG 1.4.12 success criteria, using a Playwright visual snapshot.
    • 🟢 Ensure that all a document with content containing everything in the default schema remains legible and doesn't clip content, when text sizing is overridden to that defined by WCAG 1.4.4 success criteria, using a Playwright visual snapshot.

Interactive blocks

These tests are for making sure that for any blocks with interactive elements, e.g. check list items and toggle headings, the interactive elements can be manipulated using the keyboard. Currently, only the toggle heading has a test file.

block.a11y.spec.ts

  • Interactive elements
    • 🔴 For each interactive element in the block, ensure it can be manipulated using the keyboard.
      • Technically, this is possible but it's incredibly obtuse. Things like check list item checkboxes can be focused and toggled but that requires the editor to not be focused. They also mess with the page's tab order and are generally make keyboard navigation a pain.
    • 🟢 For each interactive element in the block, ensure it can be manipulated using the keyboard while the editor is non-editable.
      • Since the editor isn't editable, there is no requirement to make the interactive element accessible from within the editor. Having it be in the page's tab order works fine in this case.

Below is a list of all the other interactive blocks that still need testing & a11y fixes:

  • Check list item (checkbox)
  • Toggle list item (toggle button)
  • Code block (language drop-down)
  • Audio block (playback controls)
  • Video block (playback controls)
  • Image block (resize controls)

Editor UI

These tests verify the accessibility of BlockNote's UI elements like menus and toolbars. These cover basically everything a11y related - keyboard navigation, focus handling, legibility, and screen reader support. Currently, only the formatting toolbar is tested, which fortunately has had some a11y improvements already.

The formatting toolbar tests are also not 100% complete as there are many items which are only visible in specific circumstances. For example, the button for adding a comment is only visible when collaboration is enabled, and media blocks like images/videos/etc have their own set of items.

FormattingToolbar.a11y.spec.ts

  • General
    • 🟢 Ensure that running an axe-core check on the toolbar doesn't yield any errors.
    • 🔴 Ensure that running axe-core check on any drop-downs or other hidden elements doesn't yield any errors.
      • Drop-downs throw errors.
  • Keyboard and focus handling
    • 🟡 Ensure that the toolbar can be opened and focused using the keyboard, then closed with focus returning to the editor, and that this is correctly communicated by a screen reader using transcripts generated by GuidePup.
      • Not clear from screen reader announcements what is happening when the toolbar opens.
    • 🔴 Ensure that while the editor is read-only, the toolbar can still be opened and focused using the keyboard.
      • Media blocks like images can be clicked to select them and open the formatting toolbar, to show the download button. This is not possible using the keyboard.
    • 🟢 Ensure that each interactive item in the toolbar can be focused and executed using the keyboard.
    • 🟡 Ensure that the currently focused item has a focus ring or some other visual cue, using using Playwright visual snapshots.
      • Almost every item has a focus ring, it's only missing for the input in the "Add link" button.

Below is a list of all other UI elements that still need testing & a11y fixes:

  • Remaining formatting toolbar items
  • Mobile formatting toolbar
  • Link toolbar
  • Side menu
  • Slash menu
  • File panel
  • Table handles

Rationale

While we have done accessibility work before, it was mainly patching fairly glaring issues like the formatting toolbar being inaccessible via the keyboard. This PR is the start of a longer term commitment to improve a11y, and testing gives us a framework for figuring out where the main issues are and what still needs to be done.

Changes

TODO

Impact

N/A

Testing

See above.

Screenshots/Video

N/A

Checklist

  • Code follows the project's coding standards.
  • Unit tests covering the new feature have been added.
  • All existing tests pass.
  • The documentation has been updated to reflect the new feature

Additional Notes

Broader TODOs:

  • Currently, keyboard focus/navigation tests for blocks with interactive elements are colocated with the respective blocks. However, screen reader testing for table cells is not colocated with table blocks. Should we even have colocated tests for specific blocks, or should we clump them into editor content tests since they're part of the default schema?
  • Screen reader tests are expensive. They are valuable, but more for identifying potential improvements rather than regressions. Do we want/need all of the ones included in this PR?
  • CI is technically implemented but I haven't looked into it very deep so it most likely needs work.
  • We should revisit existing unit and e2e tests for UI elements and keyboard handling. We are likely implicitly testing a bunch of things through keyboard navigation that have dedicated unit tests. Should be done in a separate PR though.
  • We should enable the a11y oxlint rules, but that's out of scope for this PR.

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matthewlipski requested a review from YousefED October 9, 2026 16:38

- name: Upload browser report and diagnostics
if: ${{ !cancelled() }}
uses: actions/upload-artifact@043fb46d1a93c77aae656e7c1c64a875d1fc6a0a # v7

- name: Upload VoiceOver report and diagnostics
if: ${{ !cancelled() }}
uses: actions/upload-artifact@043fb46d1a93c77aae656e7c1c64a875d1fc6a0a # v7
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@@ -0,0 +1,61 @@
This document covers the main areas that are most relevant to the editor regarding accessibility. These areas are derived from:

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let's make sure this .md's are not merged, because afaik they're 1-off studies for this workstream. Anything in the repo should be long-lived

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Yep, marked in the description as temporary. Just have to remember to remove them later, but still useful atm mainly so you can point agents to them.

await expect.element(button).toHaveAttribute("aria-pressed", "true");
});

test("formatting toolbar: Italic", async () => {

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This repeats the same for every button, which got me thinking we can go in two directions:

  • full: Accept that we want to test every user interaction like this. In that case, we might as well extend it to make sure the action (enter) does what's expected (make text bold). This concept would not turn it into an a11y specific test anymore, but sets a pattern where every component must have a complete browser test that covers functionality, a11y, etc. In this case, we should also think if mouse clicks should be handled as well
  • minimal: test this for 1 button or at the ToolbarButton level

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I do wonder if we should have screenshots for all possible states though

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I think it's worth having a discussion about this on call. Another solution could be to have even more granular, Storybook-esque UI testing, and test toolbar buttons/dropdowns/menus/etc in isolation. That would be a pretty major refactor though.

@@ -0,0 +1,44 @@
import { expect, test } from "vite-plus/test";

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This is nice. General note; once we have the patterns, it would be great to set up an agent file with testing rules about file names and testing patterns, to make sure everything stays consistent, and to make sure LLMs / contributors don't pollute the nicely structured files with tests that repro a specific case but go against the pattern

Even better if we could cover this at the type system or lint stage.

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For example, let's make explicit that these .axe files should:

  • scan the main compononent
  • scan all "hidden" popups owned by the component

Comment thread tests/a11y/helpers.tsx Outdated
}
}

test.describe("text spacing and resizing", () => {

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Interesting! How did you find this? Are there similar cases that should be tested? Are there tools that can set these variants for us? (so we don't need to hand-roll these document changes)

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I was literally browsing the WCAG 2.0 requirements one by one and stumbled across these. They were the only ones I found that were based on making sure that some external styles can be applied without issue, except animations but we can't really test those as they'd require smth like video snapshots.

});
});

test("default schema remains readable at 200% text size", async () => {

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can't we set this with playwright or sth else instead of hand-rolling this?

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It's not that simple since each font in the editor has to be scaled by 200%, not just the base editor font size. So we have to go through each one and multiple the original size.

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to be revisited

Comment thread packages/core/src/blocks/Heading/a11y/block.a11y.spec.ts Outdated
Comment thread packages/core/src/blocks/Heading/a11y/block.a11y.test.ts
Comment thread packages/react/src/editor/a11y/BlockNoteView.a11y.spec.ts Outdated
Comment thread tests/a11y/helpers.tsx
)
.toBe(false);
const results = await axe.run(scope ? { include: [scope] } : document.body);
expect(results.violations, "axe violations").toEqual([]);

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how will we go about this in practice? I assume this will report a lot? Are they all relevant? What's a good workflow that allows us to ship continuous improvements?

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Honestly there aren't that many. We can skip the failing axe test files for now and start enabling each one separately after fixing all the issues for that component.

These are all reported violations:

Test Rule Severity Finding
Default schema aria-input-field-name Serious The editor’s textbox has no accessible name.
Default schema color-contrast Serious “Quoted text” has 4.29:1 contrast; requires 4.5:1.
Default schema label Critical Both check list checkboxes—checked and unchecked—lack accessible names.
Default schema target-size Serious Both checkboxes measure 12 × 24px, with insufficient surrounding space to satisfy the spacing exception.
Formatting toolbar: block type menu aria-required-children Critical The menu contains a Mantine autofocus div[tabindex="-1"] that axe flags as a disallowed child.
Formatting toolbar: colors menu aria-required-children Critical Same autofocus-element issue as the block type menu.

There is one incomplete finding requiring manual review:

Test Rule Finding
Default schema video-caption Check whether the video requires captions and whether suitable captions are available. Axe cannot determine this automatically.

The formatting toolbar itself and link popover report no violations or incomplete findings.

import { pressKey, readSelection } from "@root/tests/a11y/helpers.js";

// Shared by browser keyboard checks and the native transcript test.
export async function navigateDefaultSchemaDocument() {

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  • this test could skip over blocks without us detecting it
  • we dont test arrowdown and arrowright navigation (not sure if we want, but fyi)
  • This feels more like a shared test than a helper. It differs in nature quite a bit from the other helpers

);
}

export function applyStyles(css: string) {

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  • why is resizeText here, but not increaseLineSpacing? instead, that one uses applyStyles

TLDR; let's make sure all patterns are consistent

Comment thread tests/a11y/helpers.tsx
@@ -0,0 +1,119 @@
import type { PartialBlock } from "@blocknote/core";

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I think this file also contains some screenreader specific helpers, and some blocknote-specific

Comment thread tests/a11y/documents.ts
@@ -0,0 +1,124 @@
import type {

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is this different from the default testdocument or can we reuse code?

Comment thread vite.config.ts
output: ["packages/core/README.md", "packages/react/README.md"],
// Accessibility checks interact with Docker or a native screen reader;
// replaying cached output must never stand in for running those checks.
a11y: {

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tbd; let's see if we can / want to run these tests as part of the regular suite. Makes sense that GuidePup has a different setup, but the other tests could just be run as part of the regular tests I think.

Closely related to https://github.com/TypeCellOS/BlockNote/pull/3177/changes#paneldiscussion_r4255956960

Comment thread vite.config.ts
"no-restricted-properties": [
"error",
{
property: "getByTestId",

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this can apply to the entire project?

(general rule; let's try to keep the codebase as consistent as possible)

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