December 17, 2014

Simple Tools and Steps To Check the Accessibility of Websites

Is the color and contrast on your organization’s website usable by individuals with low vision? Do the images on your website include alternative text descriptions? Can users easily resize and enlarge the text on your site for improved readability? These are some of the accessibility checks that you can run on your website using a browser accessibility toolbar and automated web accessibility checkers.

While automated accessibility checkers can’t replace expert evaluations, there are a number of free tools that can help you get started analyzing and evaluating the accessibility of your website and identifying possible barriers.

Begin by installing the browser toolbar(s) of your choice, such as:

The W3C Easy Checks resource provides descriptions and step-by-step instructions for using the toolbars and next steps after identifying accessibility errors.

Automated accessibility checker sites such as the WAVE Accessibility Tool online web service or the Functional Accessibility Evaluator 2.0 (FAE) will crawl your website and generate automated reports for both static and dynamic content analyzing markup consistent with WCAG 2.0 Guidelines and Section 508 Accessibility Standards.

It’s important to remember that no automated website checker can take the place of human interpretation of your site’s basic content and design. For example: is the navigation logical and easy to access, are headings properly coded, is alternative text for images both usable and functional? Help ensure your website is accessible for all visitors by performing basic accessibility checks. The tools described here will provide you with important information to get started.

Content contributed from AccessGA by Janet Sylvia, Digital Media Professional, and founder and leader of the University of Georgia’s innovative Web Accessibility Group (WAG).

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