Guides: D4D Accessibility Guide: Automated Accessibility Checker Tools

What You Need to Know About Accessibility Checker Tools

These tools can help you more quickly identify what work you may have to do in a Guide. Web accessibility evaluation tools are software programs or online services that help you determine if web content meets accessibility guidelines.

Note on Automated Tools

Automated checkers do not pick up all the accessibility issues. Still do your manual checks against the milestones to ensure you get everything.
You’ll need to run the tool(s) on each page of your guide.

The Web Accessibility Initiative (W3C) has a comprehensive list of available tools. They also provide a resource for selecting a web accessibility tool, but some that we suggest are linked below.

General Automated Testing:

WAVE Extension
The WAVE Chrome and Firefox extensions allows you to evaluate web content for accessibility issues directly within Chrome and Firefox browsers. Because the extension runs entirely within your web browser, no information is sent to the WAVE server. This ensures 100% private and secure accessibility reporting. The extension can check intranet, password-protected, dynamically generated, or sensitive web pages. Also, because the WAVE extension evaluates the rendered version of your page, locally displayed styles and dynamically-generated content from scripts or AJAX can be evaluated.
WAVE Extension for Chrome
Download the Chrome extension of the WAVE Accessibility Evaluation Tool.
WAVE Extension for Firefox
Download the Firefox extension for the WAVE Accessibility Evaluation Tool
Arc Toolkit (for Chrome) extension
The ARC Toolkit is a set of accessibility tools which aids developers in identifying accessibility problems and features for WCAG 2.0, WCAG 2.1, EN 301 549, and Section 508.
Accessibility Viewer (aViewer - Windows only)
The Accessibility Viewer (aViewer) is an inspection tool for Windows that displays the accessibility API information (MSAA, IAccessible2, UI Automation, ARIA, HTML DOM) exposed by web browsers to the operating system, and thus to any assistive technology (AT) such as screenreaders.

Project Management Suggestions

Testing tool skills can be helpful lots of different types of accessibility work, not just LibGuides remediation. If you can offer workshops or trainings on this more broadly at your organization it helps to build a culture of accessibility and skills.

Web Validation Tools & Screenreader Simulators - CARL 2020 Handout

There are many different validators, simulators, accessibility checkers, and other web tools available for you to review and revise your web documents. Here are a few for your reference after this preconference session.

Accessibility & Web Validation Tools

Use these tools to check your code to make sure the elements render correctly:

W3C Markup Validation Service

CSS Validation

Dr. Watson Evaluator

These resources help evaluate the accessibility of materials in your pages.

WebAIM WAVE

CynthiaSays

AChecker

If users are experiencing difficulty with site elements in a specific browser, you can use this tool to emulate other browser types to check compatibility:
Browser Shots

If you’re concerned about load times for elements on your website, try this service:
WebSiteOptimization.com

Conversion Tools

For text-to-speech conversions.

Natural Reader (free for time limited use, subscription for more features)

Screenreader Simulators

Funkify (Google Chrome Extension)

WebAIM Screenreader Simulator (older)

VoiceOver for Macs

NVDA for Windows

Silktide

Other Resources

ASGCLA Assistive Technology Resources

From Graeme Fulton’s Evanto Tutorials, article on designing for visual impairments

Reuse this handout!

This handout was created by Joanna Messer Kimmitt for the CARL 2020 Conference session “Accessibility & the Ethics of Care” and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.