Accessibility validator,

[turbonostics]

Hi there,

I get confused with the WC3 rules on accessibilty, personally I dont think they as are clear as they could be.

Is there a accessibility validator that goes through your website, just like the HTML and CSS validators?

Many Thanks

[Dan Schulz]

Nope. Accessibility and usability are things that are best done (or validated) by actually sitting people in front of a computer and watching what they do without saying a thing. The accessibility checkers that used to be free were good to check against the guidelines before conducting the live user testing, but they were never designed to "validate" that a site was/is accessible.

[AutisticCuckoo]

Let me take this opportunity to once again repeat my favourite quote about accessibility 'validators':

The markup validator checks that the page can be read correctly by a program. For this purpose, another program is always best. Accessibility is about the user's ability to use the page, which is best checked by another human.

— Christian Ankerstjerne

[adrian rayfield]

Nope. Accessibility and usability are things that are best done (or validated) by actually sitting people in front of a computer and watching what they do without saying a thing. The accessibility checkers that used to be free were good to check against the guidelines before conducting the live user testing, but they were never designed to "validate" that a site was/is accessible.

I would agree with you Dan.

Turbonostics, they aren't 'rules' as such but guidelines and many area's cannot be tested via a validator as they need human judgement, such as alt tags, color etc.

[Dan Schulz]

(There is no such thing as an alt tag, but there is an alt attribute. )

[adrian rayfield]

(There is no such thing as an alt tag, but there is an alt attribute. )

LOL Fair point

[Dan Schulz]

Better to hear it from me than Tommy.

[DaveWoods]

I completely agree with everything that's been said but there are a few tools that you can use as an initial step to check that the fundamental basics for accessibility are in place.

http://www.cynthiasays.com/

By no means should you run that test and assume that your site is accessible but it does serve as a useful starting point.

There's also other tests that you can use such as the colour contrast extension for firefox

http://juicystudio.com/article/colou...-extension.php

But as others have pointed out, accessibility is such a subjective area that the best method of testing is for users to actually take part in accessibility testing. No machine can test whether font sizes are too small and can be resized, whether dyslexic people can read your content or whether a blind person will be able to understand and navigate your site.

[daniiswara]

I completely agree with everything that's been said but there are a few tools that you can use as an initial step to check that the fundamental basics for accessibility are in place.

http://www.cynthiasays.com/

I guess cynthiasays.com is not valid anymore for WAI test, but still good enough to check 508

another tool (better description in result) is http://checker.atrc.utoronto.ca/, based on WCAG 2.0 Level 2 (AA)

[daniiswara]

I guess cynthiasays.com is not valid anymore for WAI test, but still good enough to check 508

sorry..I guess WAI test by cynthiasays.com is valid right now

[ro0bear]

http://www.erigami.com/ is pretty good too.

ro0bear

[daniiswara]

using ATRC Web Checker, we can select some guidelines:

• BITV 1.0 (Germany standard)

• Section 508 (USA)

• Stanca Act (Italy)

• WCAG 2.0 L3

http://checker.atrc.utoronto.ca/servlet/ChangeGuideline

[ericahex]

There's actually a list of "online web accessibility evaluators/validators" within the stuck thread at the top of the forum labelled All You Need For Accessibility - Tutorials, Tools, Books, Validators, etc. Quite a wealth of information and tools there for you, whether you want to use a validator, or just learn more in depth about accessibility guidelines

[daniiswara]

There's actually a list of "online web accessibility evaluators/validators" within the stuck thread at the top of the forum labelled All You Need For Accessibility - Tutorials, Tools, Books, Validators, etc. Quite a wealth of information and tools there for you, whether you want to use a validator, or just learn more in depth about accessibility guidelines

yup thanks..http://aprompt.snow.utoronto.ca/ refer to http://checker.atrc.utoronto.ca/

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