Accessibility Testing

"Accessibility testing is essential to ensure equal access to information for all people, regardless of ability. For developers, designers, managers, and even the casual researcher, outlining and understanding accessibility guidelines can seem like an overwhelming task."

"IBM has released a new solution that is designed to allow developers and testers to integrate automated accessibility testing within Chrome browser development tools to help deliver an optimized user experience and conform to industry standards."

"... quick introduction to the personas we created ..."

Firsthand accounts, by people with disabilities, about the accessibility of web sites and apps.

Organizes symposiums "... for the accessibility community to gather, present, and engage colleagues in the discussion of current challenges and pressing issues, and to further the science and practice of testing."

"This post details the reasons I am considering no longer using JAWS for Web accessibility testing."

Commercial service in which people with disabilities perform usability and accessibility testing.

This is a Spanish-language "... online service to automatically evaluate the accessibility of a web page, using some techniques recommended by the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG 2.0)."

"Tenon’s API allows you to customize your testing using 13 parameters that include things like WCAG Level, test certainty, and viewport parameters. By customizing the values for these parameters, you can fine-tune Tenon’s testing to give you the results based on your own priorities. In return, Tenon’s response includes a wealth of details, useful in processing the response for your specific needs, including 14 fields in each issue result.. The flexibility of the API allows you to […]

"in a web accessible to everyone. Tenon.io exists because universal design is hard. We create software to help you reach beyond compliance and build superior experiences for everyone."

"This article presents a wide variety of mistakes, misconceptions, over-indulgences, intricacies, and generally silly aspects of modern accessibility. While most accessibility issues are due to lack of knowledge, sometimes the most egregious errors are made by well-meaning developers who simply misunderstand the concepts or take their limited understanding of accessibility to an extreme level - thus web accessibility gone wild. Our hope is to provide an overview of many of the finer […]

"This page helps you assess the accessibility of a web page. With these simple steps, you can get an idea whether or not accessibility is addressed in even the most basic way. These checks cover just a few accessibility issues and are designed to be quick and easy, rather than definitive. A web page could seem to pass these checks, yet still have accessibility barriers. More robust evaluation is needed to evaluate all issues comprehensively. Additional evaluation guidance is available […]

"Improving the User Experience"

"One critical component to web accessibility to understand is that the page source (what is seen when you “View Source”) is not what the user of an assistive technologies experiences. Screen readers, screen magnifiers, voice recognition software and the like are not browsers. A screen reader, for example, identifies and interprets what is being sent to standard output by the browser. When you view a page in your browser, you’re viewing the browser’s implementation of that page’s […]

"Get the current accessibility support status of HTML5 features across major browsers. Editor’s draft"

"Note: This is not an exhaustive tutorial for accessibility. That said, HIKE will teach you some very important best practices for web accessibility (in under 20 minutes too!). While the tutorial uses VoiceOver (Apple's screen reader), you can use any screen reader you choose. In addition, you do not need a screen reader at all to complete the exercises. Happy learning!"

"With FireEyes II, you can review test results that include details about the specific standard in violation, highlight the specific area of the page where an error is located, and inspect the issue directly in your browser, just as you did with your previous installation of FireEyes."

"The WAVE API allows automated and remote accessibility analysis of web pages using the WAVE processing engine. You send us the URL or content of the page to be analyzed, we'll send you back useful data about how accessible it is. The API engine evaluates your web page after CSS and JavaScript has been applied resulting in a more accurate evaluation of end user accessibility."

Web Accessibility Tool

"The WAVE is designed to locate and identify accessibility problems within web pages, so that they can be repaired. It analyzes pages for issues, possible errors, features, semantic elements, and structural elements that can be checked for automatically. It provides a good first pass for checking web pages for accessibility. The WAVE requires a basic understanding of accessibility but it also helps you learn."

"This article is designed to help users who are new to NonVisual Desktop Access (NVDA) learn the basic controls for testing web content, and to serve as a reference for the occasional NVDA user. NonVisual Desktop Access (NVDA) is a free and open source screen reader for the Microsoft Windows operating system. It supports over 20 languages and can run on any computer entirely from a USB drive with no installation."

"What is Surf's Up? It is a small training Web site created by Freedom Scientific to help people: Learn to use JAWS and MAGic on the Web Test various HTML (HyperText Markup Language) code Provide sample pages for learning and testing - both good and bad examples Use with our Basic Training for JAWS and MAGic, as well as other workshops and Webinars"

"This article is designed to help users who are new to JAWS learn the basic controls for testing web content, and to serve as a reference for the occasional JAWS user. While reading this article, keep a few things in mind:"

"JAWS offers comprehensive screen reading capability for Windows that includes extended product customization through powerful utility managers."

Interactive links of accessibility

"Fangs renders a text version of a web page similar to how a screen reader would read it. The ambition is to help developers understand how an assistive device would present a website and thereby increase chances of finding accessibility issues early."

"There isn’t much information available about the platforms, devices and screen readers that people use. The best source of information we have is the WebAIM screen reader survey (last conducted in January 2014). It’s based on a very small sample of people, but it still provides a useful glimpse into the technologies used by blind or partially sighted people. This post focuses on four popular desktop screen readers: Jaws, Narrator, NVDA and VoiceOver."

"It is imperative that websites be accessible, usable and useful to this group of users as well – and it should not differentiate users based on language/culture/location/software/physical or mental ability."

"The Colour Contrast Analyser (CCA) helps you determine the legibility of text and the contrast of visual elements, such as graphical controls and visual indicators."

"Pages being tested Accessibility Fails Accessibility Fails: Missing elements and attributes Accessibility Fails: Invalid Values and Code Accessibility Fails: Inappropriate content"

"Now you can do accessibility testing along with your usability testing! Knowbility and Loop11 have created the AccessWorks database of web users with disabilities. Loop 11 is a powerful web-based tool for remote unmoderated usability testing. AccessWorks is an extensive database of users with disabilities. Put them together and you get access to participants using screen readers and other assistive devices reporting their first-hand reactions to your site or app."

"Here at The Paciello Group (TPG) we have a technical accessibility testing process which does not involve the use of automated tools. The technical audit results we provide to our clients are based solely on manual testing of a web site, web application, mobile or desktop application."

"This tool helps you generate a report according to the Website Accessibility Conformance Evaluation Methodology (WCAG-EM). It does not perform any accessibility checks. It helps you follow the steps of WCAG-EM, to generate a structured report from the input that you provide. It is designed for experienced evaluators who know Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 and are somewhat familiar with WCAG-EM. For an introduction to WCAG-EM, see the WCAG-EM Overview."

"A simple Google Search for “Accessibility Tools” yields a number of lists and collections of tools. I could have very easily copied one or two such lists and voila, I have a new post. But, I wanted to add a personal touch to this post by writing about the tools I use in my daily job. I was surprised by the number of broken links in the lists I visited – most of them linking to obsolete Accessibility Tools such as Bobby – some with links to the old 1995 web site!"

"Personas are hypothetical archetypes of actual users." founded " ... on real data obtained from field research studying real people." Cognitive impairment: Dementia/Alzheimer disease ... (Multiple Sclerosis - memory loss - reduced dexterity) ... Dysarthria; Learning disability (Dyslexic and colour blind) ... (Speech and language disorders) ... (Dyslexic and colour blind) ... (Cerebral Palsy)."