Pages must evaluated using different techniques. Good accessibility checks require both human judgment necessitating manual checking and code validation. Code validators cannot determine the accessibility of Web sites, they can only assist in accessibility checking.
Validation tools validate the code on the page against user selected criteria, Section 508 or W3C Web Accessibility (WCAG) Standards. They range from browser-based toolbars that test a page and visually display identified issues; desktop applications that monitor, evaluate and help retrofit web pages; and server-based tools that spider web sites and generate accessibility compliance reports. Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) provides a comprehensive list of free and commercial products.
Validation and Repair Tools
NC State has licensed two commercial products to help web developers monitor, validate and retrofit their web content against Section 508 and W3C Web Accessibility Standards.
- Lift Desktop Solution from Usablenet is a tool that is installed as an extension of Macromedia Dreamweaver or Microsoft FrontPage to help evaluate, monitor and retrofit web pages from within the authoring tool.
- Lift Assistive, a server-based tool that instantly generates a "text-only" view of your content on a page eliminating the need to develop and maintain separate "text only" page used by some assistive technology and mobile devices.
- AccVerify/Repair, desktop tool from HiSoftware , also helps evaluate and retrofit web content and generate reports.
- A-Prompt (Accessibility Prompt) is a free software tool developed by the Adaptive Technology Resource Center:, University of Toronto. It checks a web site for accessibility and when possible, performs automatic repairs. It also provides an accessibility wizard that can help the web developer manually retrofit their web content to meet accessibility standards.
Evaluation and Reporting Services
These are server-based tools spider a single page or large web sites and return reports issues reports.
- LIFT Machine is a server based product from Usablenet that scans both static and dynamic web sites for accessibility and usability issues and generates detailed reports.
- Rational Policy Tester Accessibility Edition (formally Bobby), determines a wit site's level of compliance with government standards and dispalys the results.
- Wave from Webaim has a group of web accessibility tools. In addition to the Wave toolbar, they also provide an online service to validate single pages.
- Functional Accessibility Evaluator from University of Illinois, Urbana / Champaign evaluates a web site and returns a issues report.
Accessibility Toolbars
Toolbars are installed as add-in to the browser and offer a choice of widgets for identifying, testing, simulating and validating web pages against given criteria.
- National Information and Library Services in Australia has available for download, an excellent web accessibility toolbar for Internet Explore. The developer, Steven Faulkner, provides a wealth of widgets that can simulate user experience, perform quick accessibility checks, identify components, structural markup and validate the HTML code of the web page.
- Web Accessibility Toolbar for Opera and Web Accessibility Toolbar for IE also developed by Steven Faulkner for the Web Accessibility Tools Consortium of Australia.
- Web Developer 1.0.5 , by Chris Pederick , is a great toolbar for Mozilla /Firefox. It provides a comprehensive set of web developer tools and widgets that can be used to perform quick accessibility checks.
- Accessibility Extensions for Mozilla/Firefox from University of Illinois, Urbana/Champaign. This toolbar provides easy access to navigation, styling, and keyboard enhancement functionality and has widgets to verify the structural markup of the page.
- Wave from Webaim has good tool bars for IE, Mozilla and Netscape. It validates the pages against Section 508 or W3C Web Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).
Simulators
These tools when used with web content can simulate how people with different functional limitations can view the web site.
- Lynx Viewer from Yellowpipe Internet Services allows webmasters to view their pages with a Lynx (text-mode) web browser. The pages can be tested on the site or a copy can be downloaded and installed on your desktop.
- Fangs a Screen Reader Emulator creates a textual representation of a web page similar to how the page would be read by a modern screen reader.
- Vischeck is a simulator that shows what objects look like to someone who is color blind. Vischeck can be run online from the web site or downloaded to be installed on a local computer.
- Color Contrast Analyser 1.1. helps luminosity contrast ratio, color and brightness differences
- Daltonize is a tool that analyze the information conveyed by variations in the red/green in an image and converts these into changes in brightness and/or blue/yellow coloration.
- ADesigner: A simulator by IBM Alpha Works. This application helps Web designers ensure their pages are accessible and usable by the visually impaired. The tool looks at the degree of color contrast on the page, the ability of users to change the font size, the appropriateness of alternate text for images, and the availability of links in the page to promote navigability. This is a commercial application and is available from their web site.
- Powertalk is a free program that automatically speaks any presentation or slide show running in Microsoft PowerPoint for Windows. It is a great tool to test PowerPoint slides for accessibility.
- Virtual Magnifying Glass is a free, open source, screen magnification tool for Windows and Linux. It is simple, customizable, and easy-to-use.
