- Determine the accessibility standards and what level you are trying to achieve.
- Conduct technical testing, incorporating a combination of automated testing and manual inspection.
- Consider including user testing to appreciate practical accessibility and usability issues that may be experienced by people with a disability.
- Automated accessibility checkers assist the accessibility testing process, particularly for web sites with a large number of web pages or for organisations with multiple web sites.
- These tools can only test for a limited number of accessibility problems - about one third of the WCAG success criteria.
- They can also support a manual inspection process by identifying specific aspects of a web page that need to be checked.
- The WAVE by WebAIM is an automated accessibility checker used for testing individual web pages
- Web Accessibility Checker by the Adaptive Technology Resource Centre at the University of Toronto checks single HTML pages for conformance with accessibility standards
- Functional Accessibility Evaluator evaluates the functional accessibility of web pages
- Manual inspection consists of visual inspection of a web page and its code.
- There are a number of browser functions, accessibility toolbars, and other tools that can be used to support the manual inspection process.
Typically manual inspection is based on a sample of representative pages on a web site:
- Start with the Home page and any other main entry points
- Include a page from each level of the navigation
- Include a few content pages (with different layouts or types of content)
- Include the search page and associated results page
- Include an example form
- Include pages that contain specific functionality (eg. shopping, maps, blogs)
User testing Click here to read more about User Testing
- Including people with a disability in user testing allows you to appreciate the usability issues these people may face when accessing your web site.
- While users testing web sites can provide their personal experiences, they cannot determine if the website is technically accessible, or if it will work with every type of assistive technology.
- Users should be skilled, but not expert, with their assistive technology.
- The web site needs to be technically accessible before asking users to test it.
- Bear in mind that people with a disability may require more time to complete tasks and they may benefit from some time to familiarise themselves with the web site before attempting any tasks.