Run Authenticated Scans in UserWay's Accessibility Scanner

Rodrigo Asai
Rodrigo Asai
  • Updated

UserWay's Accessibility Scanner offers 3 different types of authentications:

Authentication Type Applies to Complexity
Basic Authentication Website that uses basic HTTP authentication  No technical skill required
Form Authentication Username plus password authentication Basic CSS knowledge
Scenario Authentication Any other type of login Basic CSS and JS knowledge

Basic Authentication

HTTP Basic authentication simply means the application sends a username and password with every request, and those credentials are also often stored or saved on the device.

To add a site that is under HTTP basic authentication, follow the steps below:

  1. Log in to your scanner account. 
  2. Click on + New Scan to create a new scan
  3. Switch to the Authenticated Scan tab to choose the authentication method


  4. Add the site or page you would like to scan, then change to Basic Authentication


  5. Add the User name and Password and click the Start Scan button

Form Authentication

The authentication form is implemented directly on the website in forum format. The user needs to enter a username and password to access protected content, e.g., our Scanner login page.

The following example shows how selectors would look using our scanner authentication form:
User Name Field Selector, Password Field Selector and the Submit button Selector

To add a site that is under Form Authentication, follow the steps below:

  1. Inspect your website authentication form in a web browser using the developer tool:


  2. Click + New Scan and Authenticated Scan
  3. Click Form Authenticated scan
  4. Add your username and password, and fill in the form based on the inspection result from Step 1.


  5. Fill in the form using the selectors from the contact form
  6. Click Start Scan to add the authenticated form page to the scanner:

The selectors and ID above are just an example. They can vary according to the structure of the page. Use your browser's inspect tool to obtain the information, or consult with a developer.

Scenario Authentication

These are used when the authentication system has a specific scenario, e.g.: Authentication requires multiple steps or Authentication requires more than username/email and password.

In the following example, we will use the https://login.live.com/ website as an example, and some most-used commands, to create an authentication scenario:

Commands/code: What the command/code does:
clickOnSelector('selector: string') Performs mouse click on a given CSS selector
typeInSelector('selector: string, text: string') Performs text typing to an input (or text area) within a given CSS selector
waitForTimeout(timeout: milliseconds) Pauses scenario execution for a given timeout. We recommend using this command whenever the page or the page's DOM changes.
  1. Go to https://login.live.com/ and inspect the username form (Find CSS field selector for email, e.g.: typeInSelector('input [type="email")','test@test.com';)


  2. Find CSS field selector for Password, e.g.: typeInSelector('input [type="password")','testing';


  3. Log in to your scanner account
  4. Go to + New Scan > Authenticated Scan > Scenario authentication
  5. Add the site or page you would like to scan & monitor, and the authentication access details: