Resources

The most common tools and tutorials FPAC can use to improve and test accessibility.

Code compliance

• achecker is an accessibility reporter for HTML only.
• HTML CodeSniffer - provides a quick audit of any URL.
• Google’s Accessibility Developer Tools is a Chrome plugin for running basic accessibility tests from the comfort of your browser.
• Web Developer (Chrome)
• Web Accessibility Toolbar (WAT) is an IE tool that has been developed to aid manual examination of web pages for a variety of aspects of accessibility and is used by the DHS Trusted Tester program.
• WAVE is a comprehensive accessibility auditor with slick document introspection features.
• The W3C maintains a comprehensive list of web accessibility evaluation tools.
• Inspector (Windows) - tool used by DHS for its Trusted Tester Program.

Color checkers

• WebAIM color contrast checker compares two hex colors and tells you whether they meet WCAG AA and AAA contrast thresholds.
• Snook’s color contrast analyzer lets you adjust RGB and HSV values and reports contrast compliance interactively.
• NC State palette accessibility evaluator lets you compare contrast between three or more colors for WCAG AA or AAA compliance.
• Color Safe is a guide for choosing colors that meet WCAG contrast thresholds.
• Color Contrast Analyzer is a desktop application for contrast checking that also simulates different forms of color impairment.

Color impairment

• Color Oracle is another desktop application for simulating color impairment on your entire screen.
• Daltonize is a collection of bookmarklets that simulate the three most common forms of color impairment (protanopia, deuteranopia, and tritanopia) on any web page.
• colourblind is another simulation tool similar to Daltonize, but with more options (protanopia, protanomaly, deuteranopia, deuteranomaly, tritanopia, tritanomaly, achromatopsia, and achromatomaly) in a single bookmarklet.
• postcss-colorblind is a CSS build tool that modifies colors in your CSS to simulate four common impairment groups.

Autocomplete HTML with ARIA tags

• Awesomplete is dependency-free.
• jQuery UI autocomplete requires jQuery.
• Select2 also requires jQuery.
• ARIA autocomplete

Automated testing

• a11y is a Node-based accessibility auditing with both command-line and JavaScript APIs.
• pa11y is like a11y, but consists of a larger suite of tools, including command-line and JavaScript APIs, a web service, and a dashboard for monitoring accessibility reports across multiple sites.
• ra11y is a Ruby-based accessibility testing tool tuned for use with Jekyll and static sites.
• webalin is a Python-based 508 compliance linter for HTML.
• There are many other npm packages tagged wcag and a11y.

Accessibility tutorials

• WAI Tutorials
• Simply Accessible - great blog and resource with articles about modern accessibility.
• Creating Accessible PDFs
• Required Fixes for PDFs
• Making Files Accessible - for PDF, Word, Excel, and Powerpoint.
• GSA 508 Policies
• W3 ARIA Documentation - ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) is used in modern browsers to provide additional information to assistive technologies (IE 8+, Chrome, Firefox, Mobile, full browser list).
• ARIA Practical Examples
• The Accessibility Project - accessibility blog.
• CFPB Guide for Building Accessible Interfaces
• 508 Laws - full Section 508 standards.
• WebAIM 10 Easy Accessibility Tips
• Tips for Creating Accessible SVGs
• VO Compatibility for iOS

Disclaimer: This resource is intended to help FPAC develop accessible products and is not a replacement for the standards defined by the Access Board. Please visit the Access Board for information on Section 508 and its compliance criteria.