u/Friendly_Novel_9082

I ask because it feels like one of the simplest accessibility checks you can do, but I still don’t see it talked about nearly as much as automated scans, visual regression testing, or Lighthouse scores. In practice, it catches broken focus states, bad tab order, keyboard traps, etc. fast.

My take is that keyboard testing should be one of the default checks for any web app, especially for forms, modals, navigation, and anything interactive. If a flow can’t be completed with Tab, Shift+Tab, Enter, Space, and the arrow keys, that’s usually a sign the UX needs work, not just the accessibility layer.

Still, I’m curious whether teams actually build this into their normal workflow or whether it mostly gets handled as an occasional manual check. For me, it feels like one of the highest-signal, lowest-effort things you can do before release.

I think the annoying answer is: a lot of the ones users actually notice first.

E2E tests are great at proving a flow works, but they often don’t tell you whether the UI is actually usable or visually correct. A checkout can pass even if the button is half-hidden, a form can submit even if the layout is broken on mobile, and a page can “work” while still looking off enough that users lose trust.

The bugs I’ve seen slip through most often are things like spacing issues, overlapping elements, broken responsive states, unreadable contrast, truncated text, and visual changes caused by fonts, environment differences, or CSS tweaks. In other words, the stuff that doesn’t always fail a script, but absolutely affects the user experience.

That’s why I’m not convinced E2E tests should be the only line of defense for front-end quality. They’re useful for flow coverage, but visual regression checks and some manual review still seem necessary if you care about what the app actually looks and feels like in the browser.

What kind of things are you doing to mitigate these problems?

I feel like this is one of those things that’s easy to know you should be doing, but a lot harder to set up in a way that doesn’t become a maintenance headache. Curious what people are using and whether you’ve found any tools that actually make automated visual testing worth it.

Right now I’m mostly trying to understand what’s working in real projects, since I’ve seen everything from manual screenshot checks to tools like Percy, Chromatic, BrowserStack, etc.

What’s been your experience? Is there anything that can automate this process of actually finding visual regressions not just giving you the latest state?