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Testing web accessibility

Here are testing tools and a checklist to help you find some of the accessibility issues on the website.

A five-step review

  1. Make a list of the web pages and documents you are responsible for.
  2. Use automated testing tools.
  3. Review manually as well.
  4. Correct immediately, if possible.
  5. Make a plan for the actions that remain.
     

Automatic and manual reviews

Even if you find some of the problems with automated tools, you must also do manual reviews.

Structure your work

If you are a document owner or content owner and want to review published pages and documents, it is important to be systematic. Feel free to use Template: List and act on web pages and documents (xlsx 14 kB) , go through all web pages / documents and:

  • List the URL
  • Note the necessary actions
  • Make adjustments and mark when it is done
  • Gather the actions that remain and plan for how and when to fix them.

Tools for testing web accessibility

WAVE Evaluation Tool

The tool can be activated on the pages you want to review, to detect incorrect heading levels, unclear links and missing alt texts. Chrome plug-in, which you install and enable on the pages you want to review.

Install WAVE Evaluation Tool

Web disability simulator

If you want to get an understanding of what it is like to have different disabilities, this is a good tool. For review, the color blind feature is very handy, where you can simulate color blindness and review the contrast of your images. Chrome plug-in, which you install and enable on the pages you want to review.

To plug-in Web Disability Simulator

Screen reader / Text-to-talk tool

The easiest way to test reading the content on a page is through the mobile. Under Settings and Accessibility, you can turn on or off VoiceOver. For desktop, there are plenty of screen readers, but can be difficult to navigate for the unaccustomed. The Chrome Vox plug-in is one example.

To the plug-in Chrome Vox

Adobe Acrobat Pro

Adobe Acrobat Pro provides testing tools to check and correct the accessibility of PDF documents. License is available for all KTH personnel.

Get the program

Checklist for testing accessibility

With WAVE, check:

  • Standardised heading sizes  (so that they follow the order H1, H2, H3).
  • Clear links . (The link should be comprehensible on its own and describe where it leads. Use the heading of the page to which the link leads.)
  • Images in the right way  with ​alt-text and caption. (Always describe the image in the alt-text, except for images that are purely decorative. Photographer and people in the image should be given in the caption.)

Manually and visually, check:

With Web Disability Simulator, check:

  • Colour contrast (make sure that the contrast in images is enough for a colour blind)

With Adobe Acrobat Pro, check: