Testing your Website for Accessibility

January 4th, 2008 | Posted by Ben Keogh

Web accessibility is the practice of making websites usable by users of all abilities and disabilities, including those with visual, hearing and mobility disabilities.

Users with disabilities can have equal access to websites by using assistive technology such as screen readers, screen magnifiers, voice recognition software, alternative keyboards, and Braille displays.

So ensuring that your website is designed and built to be accessible is a key factor to allowing users with disabilities to access your website properly.

In addition though, by following basic accessibility guidelines your website will also improve for able users.

So how can a website be checked for good accessibility? A number of automated tools will be referenced in this article, but these must be used in conjunction with user testing and common sense.

Basic website accessibility tests you can do now

Test with different browsers

Websites must display correctly in all modern web browsers, with all content and images readable and understandable. The following are the most popular browsers today:

Download old browser versions by visiting http://browsers.evolt.org

Keyboard accessibility

Provide keyboard shortcuts to allow users to navigation through the website by using just the keyboard.

Not all users are able to use a mouse or other pointing device. Simple keyboard shortcuts provide a method of using the website without a mouse.

Font size

Users must be able to increase the text on a website without the content becoming distorted or illegible.

All users can do this by adjusting the text size in their browser. However, adding a text increase/decrease tool on the website is a more user-friendly method.

To check whether your website displays correctly you can increase/decrease the text size by changing your browser options:

Disable graphics

Check for alternative text on images and animations by turning off the image display. Not can you check for alternative text, but also basic site navigation.

If using Internet Explorer go to:

Tools > Internet Options > Advanced > Untick “Show Pictures”

Sitemap

For many users the sitemap is a critical page on the website as a navigation tool. The sitemap should be available and visible on all pages, and most sites provide a link to the sitemap in the footer.

In addition to being a navigation tool for users, the sitemap is also a critical page to ensuring that search engines index your website.

Automated Accessibility Tools

Below are the best tools we have found to help you make your website accessible.

W3C validation

Ensure the code you have created is valid and conforms to World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standards. A free markup validation service is available in both online and downloadable versions from the W3C themselves.

AIS Web Accessibility toolbar

The AIS Web Accessibility toolbar is an extension available for both Internet Explorer and Opera browsers. It is an extremely useful tool and has been developed to aid manual examination of Web pages for a variety of aspects of accessibility. You can download the toolbar from: http://www.visionaustralia.org.au/ais/toolbar

WebXACT (formally known as Bobby)

The WebXACT accessibility checker is a useful automated tool enabling you to check some of the accessibility, quality and privacy issues your web pages may have. It is free to use online at http://webxact.watchfire.com.

After submitting your website you will get back a report that will show you what aspects of your page have accessibility issues and what you can do to fix them. You can configure the application to select the desired level of accessibility conformance:

There are standards published by the W3C:

Priority Level A
Basic web accessibility, meaning your website is usable by most users

Priority Level AA
Most disabled users will be able to access most of your website

Priority Level AAA
Highest standard of web accessibility

A-Prompt

Use A-Prompt to make your Web pages accessible to people with disabilities. It is a free downloadable testing and repair software tool which examines Web pages for barriers to accessibility, performs automatic repairs when possible, and assists the author in manual repairs when necessary.

Wave

Wave can be downloaded and added as a toolbar in your browser or accessed directly from the AIS Web Accessibility Toolbar.

The Wave reads the underlying HTML of the Web page and returns a report displaying the reading order. This is an excellent way of testing the reading order of forms so that you can ensure the content is logical when being read by a screen reader or viewed in a non-graphical browser such as Lynx.

Lift

Lift is produced by UsableNet which comes in a number of forms including one developed in conjunction with the Neilsen Norman Group adding usability tests.

Lift simplifies the process of compliance with W3C and Section 508 guidelines and allows users to define corporate or agency-wide guidelines to meet their specific needs. Tables, images, scripts and links are easy to manage with the Fix Wizard, a simple step-by-step tool that guides users through creating accessible content.

Accessify tools and wizards

Accessify has free online toolset which helps our Websites accessible. Their tools are an excellent way for those new to the area of accessibility to create basic accessible code.

We can check it below by their other useful resources:

Home Page Reader (HPR)

HPR is a talking Web browser which is designed for people who are blind or visually impaired or for people with a literacy or cognitive impairment.

You can view a page in HPR to check whether all the information available visually in the Graphics view is also available in the Text view. You will be able to listen to the Web page as a blind person would hear. HPR is also a useful tool for checking forms have been coded correctly and all images have been given an alt attribute.

A free limited time demo can be downloaded from: http://www-306.ibm.com/able/solution_offerings/hpr.html

JAWS

JAWS is a screen reader which operates independently of the browser. For Web page testing purposes you can use a combination of JAWS and Internet Explorer to hear how a blind user would experience your site. This screen reader is a powerful accessibility solution that reads information on your screen using synthesized speech.

With a refreshable Braille display, JAWS can also provide Braille output in addition to, or instead of, speech. A 40 minute mode version is available for testing purposes.

Check it at: http://www.freedomscientific.com/fs_products/JAWS_HQ.asp

Vischeck

Shows you what your Web page looks like to people who are colour blind. You can check it at:

http://www.vischeck.com

Conclusion

Automated accessibility testing provides a valuable method of identifying accessibility flaws on your website. However these must only be used in conjunction with human checking.

Whilst an accessibility agency will be able to provide an in-depth accessibility audit, checking your own website using the tools and methods above are the first step to making basic but substantial improvements.