Go to Web Accessibility Tools

Abilityhub.com

AbilityHub.com's purpose is to help in finding information on adaptive equipment and alternative methods available for accessing computers. The site covers many types of disabilities and technologies:

• Augmentative Communication


• Blind & Visually Impaired


• Cognitive Disabilities


• Deaf and Hard of Hearing


• Electronic Aids to Daily Living


• Learning Disabilities


• Mouse Alternatives


• Keyboard Alternatives


• Switch Access


• Text - To - Speech


• Speech Recognition

Accessibility in Distance Education: A Resource for Faculty in Online Teaching

The Accessibility in Distance Education (ADE) Web site focuses on helping faculty develop accessible online learning materials for people with disabilities. The Web site focuses on Web-based education rather than classroom-based instruction. It is divided into five major sections, targeting common accessibility questions:

1. What is Accessibility?


2. Legal Issues


3. Understanding Disabilities


4. What does an accessible Web site look like?


5. Best Practices

AccessibleNet.org: Web Accessibility Links and Resources

AccessibleNet.org is an independent, online directory of links and resources about Web accessibility. Included are some of the most popular, well-researched resources available in this field. New resources are always welcome and those that are accepted will be added to the directory. The database is updated daily with news, resources, reviews or ratings.

CPB/WGBH National Center for Accessible Media

The CPB/WGBH National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM) is a research and development facility dedicated to the issues of media and information technology for people with disabilities in their homes, schools, workplaces, and communities.

Equal Access to Software and Information (EASI) — Web Design

EASI's mission is to serve as a resource by providing information and guidance in the area of access-to-information technologies by individuals with disabilities. They stay informed about developments and advancements within the adaptive computer technology field and spread that information to colleges, universities, K-12 schools, libraries and into the workplace.

HTML Writers Guild AWARE Center

The HTML Writers Guild AWARE (Accessible Web Authoring Resources and Education) Center's mission is to serve as a central resource to web authors for learning about web accessibility.

Inaccessible Website Demonstration

When people consider disability and web use they often think only of blind people, but there are many types of disabilities which need to be considered. This demonstration attempts to give a sense of the kinds of difficulties faced by visitors with a variety of disabilities. The demonstrations make a few suggestions on improving accessibility, though they aren't the last word on the subject.

Macromedia's Accessibility Resource Center

Macromedia wants developers to get educated about accessibility. The Macromedia Accessibility Resource Center offers information on Section 508, how to create an accessible site, and accessibility by product:

• Flash MX 2004 — Build Flash content that meets policy and accessibility requirements.


• Dreamweaver MX 2004 — Learn about improvements for users of assistive technologies and for developers building web applications.


• Flex — Learn how to use the Accessibility Behavior library in Director MX to update existing Director movies for accessibility.

National Center on Accessible Distance Learning (AccessDL)

The National Center on Accessible Distance Learning (AccessDL) is funded by the U.S. Department of Education (grant # OPE P333A020044) to share guidance and resources on making distance learning courses accessible to students and instructors with disabilities. It is directed by DO-IT (Disabilities, Opportunities, Internetworking, and Technology) at the University of Washington. The site provides directions for joining a discussion list as well as publications, videos, websites, resource centers, promising practices, and research.

University of Toronto Adaptive Technology Resource Centre "Technical Glossary"

The University of Toronto Adaptive Technology Resource Centre Technical Glossary provides descriptions of broad categories of adaptive technologies with links to various products and their vendors. Listings are for reference purposes only and do not reflect endorsement by the Adaptive Technology Resource Centre.

University of Washington DO-IT (Disability, Opportunity, Internetworking, and Technology): Accessible Web Design

Web developers are encouraged to consider the full spectrum of visitors to their sites. This site provides some resources that may be helpful in creating pages that are accessible to everyone, including those who have disabilities.

Publications and Videotape from DO-IT

• World Wide Access: Accessible Web Design — accessible web pages.


• Videotape: World Wide Access.


• Creating Video and Multimedia Products that are Accessible to People with Sensory Impairments.

Information on accessible Web page design

Web Video Captioning

• Creating Video Products that are Accessible to People with Sensory Impairments.


• CPB/WGBH National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM).


• WGBH Descriptive Video Service.


• Trace Center R&D's Multimedia and Virtual Reality Access.

University of Wisconsin TRACE Research & Development Center — Designing More Usable Web Sites

The Trace Research & Development Center is a part of the College of Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Founded in 1971, Trace has been a pioneer in the field of technology and disability. The Trace Center is currently working on ways to make standard information technologies and telecommunications systems more accessible and usable by people with disabilities.

WebABLE!

WebABLE's mission is to make the Internet, World Wide Web, and software accessible to people with disabilities. They provide accessibility technology and services to corporate, government, educational, and non-profit clients.

WebAIM (Web Accessibility In Mind)

Web Accessibility In Mind (WebAIM) is administered through a grant provided by the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) Learning Anywhere Anytime Partnerships (LAAP). Their goal is to improve accessibility to online learning opportunities for all people; in particular to improve accessibility for individuals with disabilities who currently may have a difficult time getting access to postsecondary online learning opportunities.

World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) was created in October 1994 to lead the World Wide Web to its full potential by developing common protocols that promote its evolution and ensure its interoperability. W3C long term goals for the Web include making the Web accessible to all by promoting technologies that take into account the vast differences in culture, education, ability, material resources, and physical limitations of users on all continents; to develop a software environment that permits each user to make the best use of the resources available on the Web; and to guide the Web's development with careful consideration for the novel legal, commercial, and social issues raised by this technology.

World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) — Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)

The World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) commitment to lead the Web to its full potential includes promoting a high degree of usability for people with disabilities. The W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), in coordination with organizations around the world, pursues accessibility of the Web through five primary areas of work: technology, guidelines, tools, education and outreach, and research and development.

Go to Web Accessibility Resources

Accessibility Audit of One Page

By Operational Control and Analysis for Web Accessibility (OCAWA). This online tool tests the accessibility of your web site using international accessibility standards.

Accessibility Extensions for Mozilla

The Mozilla/Firefox Accessibility Extension adds features to Mozilla or Firefox to make it easier for people with disabilities to view and navigate web content based on the structural markup used to create the web page. The Mozilla/Firefox accessibility extension can be used directly by everyone to navigate the structure of a HTML web resource. It can be used by authors to check their structural markup to make sure it matches the actual content structure of the resource. The extension helps authors test their use of structural markup to help people with disabilities view the main topics of a web resource (H1-H6), find collections of related links (MAP), find and use keyboard shortcuts (accesskeys) and navigate links.

Accessibility Toolbar

The Web Accessibility Toolbar is provided by the Accessible Information Solutions (AIS) team at the National Information and Library Service (National Information and Library Service) , Australia. The Web Accessibility Toolbar has been developed to aid manual examination of web pages for a variety of aspects of accessibility. It consists of a range of functions that:

• identify components of a web page


• facilitate the use of 3rd party online applications


• simulate user experiences


• provide links to references and additional resources.

Accessify.com — Tools and wizards

Tools and wizards to help make your web site more accessible more easily...

• List-O-Matic: Generate navigation bars based on list items (<li>) that are styled with CSS. It's as easy as falling off a chair, only less painful.


• Acrobot Abbreviation and Acronym Generator: Lets you quickly convert blocks of text that feature well-known abbreviations and acronyms into something more accessible. This tool will wrap a <abbr> or <acronym> tag around any matched entries. Thus, if you enter "W3C", it will be converted to <abbr title="World Wide Web Consortium">W3C</abbr>.


• Accessibility Toolbox: a downloadable version of a selection of the tools found on this site to use while offline. It's a basic tool only and is comprised of a Pop-up Window Generator, a Form Element Generator and a Form Builder.


• Dreamweaver 4 Accessibility modifications: A selection of modified DreamWeaver 4 objects that offer better accessibility options, including <abbr>, <acronym> tags and additions of title, class, and id attributes on other tags. The <table> dialogue has also had a make-over, accepting a summary and caption attribute.


• Accessible Form Builder (version 2): assists in creating an accessible form using either a traditional table layout or CSS.


• Pop-up Window Generator: a tool to quickly let you generate a link that is both accessible and XHTML compliant.


• Accessibility-checking favelets: Little pieces of JavaScript that can be saved as favourites in Internet Explorer, Mozilla and Opera. You may find these useful for checking features of a page (for example, what links are present, images missing alt attributes etc).


• Form element generator: Lets you easily build individual form elements that are accessible (requires JavaScript to work)


• Accessible table builder: You choose what table properties you want, how many rows and columns, and the tool takes care of the accessibility mark-up for you.


• Accessible Form Builder: A hybrid of the Form Element Generator and the Accessible Table Builder. This tool lets you enter a number of fields for text input, then creates a table (or Cascading Style Sheets-based layout) to lay them out in, and puts in the necessary mark-up for accessibility. Forms have never been quicker!

Accessible Form Creator

The HiSoftware Accessible Form Creator allows you to create forms for web sites containing all the additional markup required to make the forms accessible under Section 508 standards and the W3C WCAG 1.0 Priority 1-3 Guidelines.

aDesigner

The aDesigner is a disability simulator that helps Web designers ensure that their pages are accessible and usable by the visually impaired. The tool looks at such elements as the degree of color contrast on the page, the ability of users to change the font size, the appropriateness of alternate text for images, and the availability of links in the page that promote navigability. The tool also checks the pages's compliance with accessibility guidelines. The result of this analysis is a report listing the problems that would prevent accessibility and usability by visually impaired users. In addition, each page is given an overall score. With this information, Web developers get immediate feedback and can address these obstacles before the pages are published.

AnyBrowser.com

The AnyBrowser online utility can determine whether or not a Web page will render correctly in a variety of browsers. This tool can aid in the assessment of Web page accessibility by allowing the user to view a page in various screen sizes/resolutions and with images replaced by ALT text. HTML and link validation utilities, search engine tools, and other browser compatibility tests are also available.

Aprompt

A-Prompt (Accessibility Prompt) has been developed to assist Web authors in improving the accessibility and usability of HTML documents. In its current format (standalone Windows application), A-Prompt allows the author to select a file for validation and repair, or a single HTML element within a file. The tool may be customized to check for different Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 conformance levels. If an accessibility problem is detected, A-Prompt displays dialogs that guide the user in fixing the problem.

CLC-4-TTS and Fire Vox

CLC-4-TTS is a collection of JavaScript functions that can be used for transforming Firefox into a self-voicing browser. This software is open source and is licensed under the terms of the GNU GPL.

Clear Language and Effectiveness Tool

Use this Reading Effectiveness Tool to find out if a draft manuscript is at the correct Grade Reading Level for the intended audience. This interactive tool is based on the SMOG readability formula. A reading level is calculated based on the responses to a series of questions. Clear language experts agree on the following good Grade Reading Level guidelines for Web writing.

• Essential information for a diverse public, including people whose first language is not English and people with less than 8 years of formal education: Grade 5 to 6


• Information for the general public that introduces new terms and concepts or specialized subject matter: Grade 7 to 9


• Specialized information intended for an informed audience: Grade 10 to 15 (college).

Cynthia Says

The Cynthia Says™ portal educates users in the concepts behind Web site accessibility. The Cynthia Says™ portal provides feedback to users in a reporting format that is clear and easy to understand. Accessibility issues are detected within web sites from Web-based applications, dynamic pages, or static HTML pages. Users get an immediate "status" of a Web site's accessibility. The Cynthia Agent tests pages against programmatic test groups for Section 508 or W3C WCAG 1.0 Accessibility Guidelines. In addition, there are checks that must be manually performed. The manual tests are listed in each page report!

Fangs

Fangs is a Mozilla Firefox extension that displays a text representation of a web page, simulating the manner in which it might be read by a screen-reader. This may aid web developers in finding accessibility issues at an early stage in the UI development process.

FoxyVoice

FoxyVoice is a Firefox extension that provides text-to-speech functionality using Microsoft Win32 Speech API (SAPI). With FoxyVoice you can listen to the page being read; or browse on one page and listen to another page simultaneously.

GetContentSize

Enter a URL, and find-out the following three statistics for the page:

1. The size of the page, in bytes (just the HTML page -- no images, associated JavaScript or CSS files)


2. The size of the page's "text content"


3. The percentage of the page's weight devoted to text content

Header Ordering Checker

The University of Durham Header Ordering Checker linearizes each page and checks the order of heading tags. It will give a warning for each improperly ordered header. A page's HTML should be validated before using this utility, as improperly matched headers, or headers within headers could cause problems.

Hermish website accessibility tool

The Hermish Website Accessibility Tool is designed to assist developers in making Web pages that comply with the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). Hermish can check a document for Section 508 compliance as well.

HiSoftware Web-Based Site Tester

HiSoftware.Com Online Content Accessibility and Quality Test The HiSoftware Web-Based Site Tester instantly returns requested reports in the Web browser. The Accessibility reports can be run for Section 508, or WCAG Priority 1 -Priority 3.

IBM Home Page Reader

A good tool for Web developers and designers looking for a talking browser for Web page testing — providing some idea of how a blind or visually impaired screen-reader user might experience a site. Additionally, It displays two views of a Web page . It places a graphics view (a true rendering of the Web page) in the upper portion of the program window. A text-only view of the page is displayed in a window below the graphics view. There is a free 30 day free demo available for the Windows platform.

Illinois Accessible Web Publishing Wizard for Microsoft Office

The Illinois Accessible Web Publishing Wizard for Microsoft Office offers an alternative to the native web publishing features in Microsoft Office for converting Word, Powerpoint and Excel documents to HTML. The standard web publishing options often create XML based web content that can only be viewed by Microsoft Internet Explorer. Even if non-XML options are selected, users cannot easily add information that is required for accessibility. The Illinois Accessible Web Publishing Wizard simplifies the task of converting PowerPoint presentations, Word documents, and Excel spreadsheets to accessible and valid HTML 4.01 with CSS through an easy-to-use user interface and automation of many of the details of conversion needed for accessibility.

Juicy Studio: Complex Table Inspector

Developers are encouraged to use summary, headers, axis, scope, and abbr for complex data tables to aid usability and accessibility. To help developers determine if they've used those features correctly, author Gez Lemon created a complex table instector bookmark that reveals the hidden information.

Juicy Studio: Readability Test

Gunning Fog, Flesch Reading Ease, and Flesch-Kincaid are reading level algorithms that can be helpful in determining the readability of written content. Reading level algorithms only provide a rough guide, as they tend to reward short sentences made up of short words. Although they're rough guides, they can give a useful indication of whether content is targeted at the correct level for an intended audience. The Juicy Studio Readability Test automatically calculates a readability score for a Web page just by entering its URL.

Juicy Studio: Table Inspector

Table Inspector as a Firefox Extension. The extension reveals the following information for complex data tables:

• The summary attribute (rendered above the table)


• The headers attribute


• The axis attribute


• The scope attribute


• The abbr attribute.

Juicy Studio: Image Analyser

This service examines all images found on a web page to check for any accessibility issues. The width, height, alt, and longdesc attributes are examined for appropriate values.

longdesc

A firefox extension that adds a "View Image Longdesc: ..." option to the browser's image context menu. The "longdesc" attribute for an image element allows authors to use the graphic as a link to a "long description" of a complex image for use by screen-reader users. The longdesc is not indicated/displayed by main-stream browsers.

lynx-me or Lynx Viewer

These Web-based tools emulate Lynx, a text-only browser. Viewing a Web page using a Lynx emulator can aid in identifying some accessibility barriers.

Macaw

Macaw is a Free Program That Helps in Adding Text Tracks to QuickTime Video. Versions are available for both Mac and Windows platforms.

MAGpie

MAGpie is a free tool available for download from the National Center for Accessible Media. This software lets you add captions to RealVideo, QuickTime, and Windows Media files.

mod_accessibility

mod_accessibility is a fully automatic aid to making websites more accessible. It serves to improve Websites and Intranets for everyone:

• For users, a range of accessibility options to choose from.


• For developers and webmasters, an accessibility-enhanced version of your site for no effort.


• For managers, a major step towards ensuring you meet your obligations under disability discrimination law.


• For server administrators, a simple plugin that doesn't hit your server, nor involve a learning curve and new support requirements.


• For ISPs and Web hosts, a value-added service for your customers.

It can be used with any Apache 2.0 server, and works as an output filter, transforming documents as they leave the server. This means it can be used with any content-generation software (such as CGI, PHP, mod_xml, or as a proxy server with mod_proxy) without any need for special configuration. It will of course also work with other output filters, such as an XSLT, character encoding, or encryption (SSL) modules.

NIST WebMetrics Tool Suite

The objective of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Web Metrics Testbed is to explore the feasibility of a range of tools and techniques that support rapid, remote, and automated testing and evaluation of website usability. NIST offers the following prototypes for Web page evaluation:

• Web Static Analyzer Tool (WebSAT) - checks web page HTML against typical usability guidelines.


• New Web Category Analysis Tool (WebCAT) - lets the usability engineer construct and conduct a web category analysis.


• Web Variable Instrumenter Program (WebVIP) - instruments a website to capture a log of user interaction.


• Framework for Logging Usability Data (FLUD) - a file format and parser for representation of user interaction logs.


• VisVIP Tool - produces a 3D visualization of user navigation paths through a website.


• TreeDec - adds navigation aids to the pages of a website.

Opera

A free, fast, highly standards-compliant Web browser that allows you to toggle images, style sheets, scripting, and tables on and off with a single mouse click. These features allow designers to check alt-text, see how tables linearize, and ensure that pages work with style sheets turned off.

Readability.info

Curious about how complex your documents or Web pages are to read? You don't have to get a team of experts to generate your readability score: you can just use readability.info to analyze the characteristics of your writing and ascertain a multitude of readability scores (Kincaid, ARI, Coleman-Liau, Flesch, Fog, Lix and SMOG). By comparing the readability score of different documents (or Web pages) you can better hone your writing and make sure that you aren't creating overly complex sentences and paragraphs for your audience. Find out for yourself where your writing style places your prose compared to other Web pages and writing samples by choosing to either:

• Upload a Microsoft Word Document


• enter a URL

Simply Web 2000

Simply Web 2000 is a speech-friendly, speech-enabled accessible web browser with advance features that allow easy navigation of complex pages by blind users. The Simply Web 2000 package includes a software based speech synthesizer and can be used in standalone mode as a "Talking Web Browser."

STEP508

STEP508 is a new electronic tool that...

• Prioritizes the repairs becessary to ensure that a Web site is compliant with the accessibility requirements of Section 508.


• Provides the metrics to report progress in improving the accessibility of a site over time.

STEP508 uses the output of accessibility evaluation tools * (such as Bobby, LIFT, WebKing etc.) and...

• Compares the results of these evaluations


• Prioritizes the errors/accessibility problems that were identified


• Tracks the progress of accessibility repair efforts over time

Tablin: an HTML Table linearizer

Tablin is a filter program developed by the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) Evaluation & Repair (ER) group that can linearize HTML tables and render them accordingly to preferences set by the presentation layer (e.g. the screen reader end-user). It is available in different forms:

• Online tablin Web Form service.


• Tablin "commatool" setup on the w3.org Web server.


• Download the tablin java source code and run it locally (see the Readme file).


• Download various setups to use the tablin filter on lynx, apache, etc.

Vischeck

Vischeck allows a user to experience images and Web pages as they will be perceived by someone who is color blind. Vischeck is available as an online utility, a PhotoShop plug-in and a down-loadable stand-alone application.

Watchfire — WebXACT

WebXACT is a free online service that lets you test single pages of web content for quality, accessibility, and privacy issues.

1. Section 508


2. W3C WCAG - A Compliance


3. W3C WCAG - AA Compliance


4. W3C WCAG - AAA Compliance


5. Scan for broken links

The WAVE accessibility Tool

No automated tool can fully determine the accessibility of a Web page. The Wave returns a copy of a Web page with added icons, notations and borders that can aid a designer/developer in judging its accessibility. In addition to the online tool, a WAVE button can be added to a browser's tool bar — allowing the user to quickly assess the page being displayed by the browser.

Web Accessibility Inspector — FUJITSU

The Web Accessibility Inspector is a program that can determine whether or not a Web site can be easily viewed by the elderly and those with visual impairments. Web Accessibility Inspector, which is based on W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 1.0 and Fujitsu Web Accessibility Guidelines, effectively determines whether a website is easy for anyone to view. It can evaluate not just HTML but also CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), and it can conduct a diagnostic with a high level of precision, including character size, line spacing, and the color of characters and backgrounds. Use of this software allows for the improvement of a site’s overall accessibility and can ensure its reliability.

Web Accessibility Visualizer

The Web Accessibility Analyzer is a tool designed to educate people about Web accessibility issues. It will analyze pages on the Internet and demonstrates the accessibility or inaccessibility of those pages. Just enter a URL in the location bar. Several accessibility views will be presented:

• Reference — displays the original page unchanged.


• Text — replaces all images with available alternative text equivalents.


• NoScript — presents pages with scripts deactivated.


• Keyboard — requires all page navigation to be done using the keyboard.


• Links — displays a table of all the links on a page and their corresponding URL's.


• Linearize — shows what the page looks like in a linear view.


• Table Headers — shows all of the tables on the page and whether individual cells are structurally associated with a corresponding header cell.


• Headers — displays all the headers on a page.


• Lists — highlights all the lists on a page.


• Images — lists all of the images on a page along with their sizes, alt text, and classification.


• Other Media — same as "images" test for other media types.


• Frames — lists all the frames on a page, along with any title information.


• Forms — displays form controls and whether they are structurally associated with a label.


• Validate — runs the W3C HTML 4.0 validator on the current page.

Web Page Backward Compatibility Viewer

The Web Page Backward Compatibility Viewer can display a Web page, as if being viewed with a browser or technology that does not support particular features. The user can include or eliminate the following features: images, tables, blink, frames, font, body (bgcolor, link, etc), center, applet (java), script (javascript), style sheets and marquee.

"508 Accessibility Suite" for Dreamweaver 4 and UltraDev 4

This new Dreamweaver evaluation tool allows web site Accessibility to be checked in much the same way as spell-checking a word document. The extension covers Section 508 and level 1 W3C/WAI guidelines. A report can be run on a single page, a complete web site, selected section or any folder. The test can be customized for different Web pages by selecting sub-groups of the guidelines. Answers to manual tests can be collected as well. The extension provides content that explains how to perform tests, why the problems found could be accessibility issues and explains how the problem can be fixed — including examples.