Tools
The following tools can be useful to web developers in creating and testing accessible sites and applications:
Guidelines
- IITAA Implementation Guidelines for Web - a concise and easy-to-understand synthesis of the W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 and Federal Section 508 standards.
- Web Accessibility Quick Test Checklist (PDF) - quick and easy tests that can be used to check accessibility during development.
Online Testing Tools
- ATRC Web Accessibility Checker - the University of Toronto's experimental checker uses 267 automatic and manual accessibility tests to check live and local pages.
- Cynthia Says - based on HiSoftware's AccMonitor, Cynthia automatically tests for compliance with W3C and/or Section 508 accessibility standards. It can only test live pages.
- Functional Accessibility Evaluator (FAE) - FAE automatically tests live web pages and/or sites for compliance with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's Web Accessibility Best Practices.
- WAVE - WebAIM's web accessibility evaluation tool test pages against leading accessibility standards and helps authors visualize accessibility issues. WAVE can test live and local pages and one of the first testing tools that can check JavaScript-generated content.
- W3C Markup Validation Service - the W3C validator tests live and uploaed web pages for valid HTML/XHTML code, the foundation for accessibility.
Toolbars
Internet Explorer
- Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar - a powerful toolbar from Microsoft that includes a DOM inspector, image report, and easy means of switching off CSS and scripts.
- MSF&W Accessibility Toolbar - the custom-built toolbar that we use when manually testing web pages for accessibility; it provides quick and easy access to the most important tests.
- Web Accessibility Toolbar [for IE], Version 2.0 - a powerful toolbar from the Web Accessibility Tools Consortium that lets you examine the structure and accessibility of web pages, including tables, headings, form fields, images and more.
Firefox
- Firefox Accessibility Extension - a toolbar from the University of Illinois designed to help people with disabilities as well as developers.
- Web Developer Extension - a powerful Firefox extension for that lets you examine the structure of web pages.
Assistive Technology Software
- ZoomText trial - screen magnification software from Ai Squared.
- JAWS trial - screen reading software from Freedom Scientific.
- Window-Eyes trial - screen reading software from GW Micro
- Assistive Technology Quick Reference - the essential commands for operating ZoomText, JAWS, and related accessibility features.
More Information
For more information about accessibility tools and testing techniques, please email accessibility@msfw.com or call (217) 698-3535 · (217) 698-1353 TTY.
