Guide for Web Accessibility Checking tools

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WAVE Tool (for Firefox)

WAVE is a free web accessibility evaluation tool provided by WebAIM. It is used to aid in the web accessibility evaluation process. Rather than providing a complex technical report, WAVE shows the original web page with embedded icons and indicators that reveal the accessibility information within the web page. By referencing the Ten Checkpoints for Accessibility from the CSUN Accessible Technology Initiative Website, the following tools featured by the WAVE Toolbar or WAVE Web Page can help with making web pages accessible and compliant.

Downloading the WAVE Toolbar

To find out more information and download the WAVE Toolbar, please reference the following link:

http://wave.webaim.org/toolbar

Web Page Composition Checks

The WAVE tool features four types of reports:

• Errors, Features, and Alerts

  This report displays the web page with the embedded accessibility icons and indicators. The default view has most of the WAVE features enabled. If the web page becomes too cluttered because of the information returned from the WAVE tool and the CSS layout, choose to disable the CSS of the web page by choosing the Toggle Styles button located on the WAVE tool. This will display the unstyled HTML and WAVE icons and indicators.

• Structure/Order View

  This report presents the web page with a different set of icons and indicators that show the overall structure of the page. The number indicators show the reading/navigation order of the page. To see if the reading order and navigation of the page makes sense, simply follow the numbers.

• Text-only View

  This report provides the underlying text of the page. This is information that will be commonly accessed by assisitve technologies, such as screen readers. The visual styling of the page is removed to show text and alternative text for images.

• Outline View

  This report displays the headers in the page. This aids in making sure that the web page contains headers where appropriate and that the structure of the page is logical and appropriate.

Additional Resources

The WAVE tool can also be used through any web browser. To take advantage of this tool through any browser, do the following:

1. Navigate to the following URL: http://wave.webaim.org/
2. Choose one of the following options:
   • Enter a web site address - This allows a user to enter in a URL to a public web page to be checked by WAVE.

      

     

      

   • Upload a file - This allows a user to upload files that are not publicly available for the internet.

      

     

      

   • Copy/Paste HTML Code - This allows a user to paste the HTML code of a web page to be checked by WAVE.

      

     

      

Another resource associated with the WAVE tool is the WAVE Blog. Information pertaining to release notes, proper usage of the WAVE tool, and access to archived information can be found there.

The WAVE tool attempts to combine the standards of Section 508 and WCAG. Here are a couple references that discusses how to incorporate elements of those standards into a web page:

• Semantic Markup and Accessibility Standards - An Overveiw | New Age Design
• JimThatcher.com - Comparison WCAG and Section 508 Web

Web Standards References

Below are links that pertain to web standards that the WAVE toolbar uses for guidelines as far as considering if a web page is accessible.

• WCAG 1.0
• WCAG 2.0
• Section 508
• Web Accessibility Initiative - W3C
• Essential Components of Web Accessibility - W3C

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