Design, Testing and Best Practices for Inclusive User Experiences
A11y Testing tools
Follow the links in headings to install addons and extensions that we will use during the workshop.
Firefox Add-ons
WAVE Web Accessibility Extension
WAVE extension gives feedback about accessibility to facilitate manual evaluation by injecting icons and indicators into the tested web page.
OpenAjax Alliance (OAA) Accessibility Extension
Sidebar presenting the full WCAG testing support with the possibility to generate and
export reports.
AInspector Sidebar
Uses the OpenAjax open source evaluation library, rules and rulesets, but cannot generate reports, docs and latest release on GitHub.
aXe Accessibility Engine
Open-source accessibility testing tool by Deque.
WCAG Contrast checker
Very complete sidebar contrast checker, on top of which is provided a filter to simulate 4 types of colorblindness.
Fangs Screen Reader Emulator
Renders a text version of a web page similar to how a screen reader would read it. While somewhat outdated and not a substitute for testing with the screen-reader, it proved to be a useful first-time tool for inexperienced designers and developers, that helped to better understand how blind and visually impaired learners perceive a web application.
Juicy Studio Accessibility Toolbar
Good for checking ARIA features, tables and color contrast.
Chrome Extensions
WAVE Evaluation Tool
Web accessibility evaluation tool developed by WebAIM.org.
Accessibility Developer Tools
Adds an Accessibility sidebar pane in the Elements tab, and Accessibility audit option to your Chrome Developer Tools.
aXe Accessibility Engine
Open-source accessibility testing tool by Deque.
NoCoffee vision simulator
Evaluation tool helpful for understanding several vision problems and deficiencies.
Spectrum
Evaluation tool for different types of color vision deficiency.
WCAG Luminosity Contrast Ratio Analyzer
Pick colors, compute contrast, get suggestions & preview with challenged visions.
Bookmarklets/Favelets (browser independent)
tota11y - an accessibility visualization toolkit
Helps visualize the most common accessibility violations (and successes).
HTML_CodeSniffer
Detects violations of both Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 (all three
conformance levels), and the web-related components of the US. "Section 508" legislation.
Visual ARIA Bookmarklet
Allows any sighted person to physically see the use of ARIA on public websites.
Jim Thatcher’s Favelets
Several handy a11y assessment favelets/bookmarklets.
Color Contrast tools
Variety of color and contrast tools that you can use on your own or make available for the design teams.
Contrast Analyzer
Standalone tool; provides a pass/fail check for WCAG 2.0 contrast criteria; simulates certain visual conditions.
Accessibility Color Wheel
Find an accessible color pair and compare contrast with simulation of three types of color deficiency: deuteranopia, protanopia and tritanopia.
Contrast Ratio
Color Safe
Accessible color palettes based on WCAG Guidelines of text and background contrast
ratios.
Color Palette Accessibility Evaluator
Online tool for analyzing color combinations that meet WCAG 2 a11y specifications.
Color Contrast Visualizer
SWF tool with Photoshop style color picker.
PDF Accessibility with Acrobat Pro
To fully evaluate PDF files for accessibility you must have access to Adobe Acrobat Pro (download the latest 30 days evaluation version).
PDF Accessibility Checker (PAC 2)
http://www.access-for-all.ch/en/pdf-lab/pdf-accessibility-checker-pac.html
Evaluates PDF files against checkpoints and failure conditions of the Matterhorn Protocol (PDF/UA Conformance Testing Model).
Other Resources
Document Accessibility Toolbar
Document Accessibility Toolbar - Vision Australia
Accessibility ribbon menu for Microsoft Word that makes it quicker and easier to create accessible documents.
AccessODF
AccessODF - KU Leuven (AEGIS project, funded by European Commission).
Accessibility checker for Writer, the word processing application in LibreOffice and Apache OpenOffice.org.