13 Free Tools You Can Use Right Now to Test Section 508 Accessibility
Accessibility is more than just a modern standard of web development; it is the way to ensure all users, including those with disabilities, can access the information on your digital products.
Unfortunately, there is no magic bullet testing tool for accessibility. Many issues can only be assessed by real live user interaction. However, these tools can be your little assistants as you evaluate accessibility for disabled users.
Here are 13 free tools you can use to test Section 508 accessibility:
Web-based Tools & References
While this added layer of accessibility user acceptance testing can be tedious, the good news is developers out there are fighting the good fight to create tools that you can access for free!
Nu HTML Checker
HTML validators have fallen out of fashion over the years, but when evaluating accessibility, always start with an HTML validator.
HTML is not only parsed by desktop computers, but it is also parsed by screen readers, voice assistants (Alexa and Hey Google), search engines, mobile devices, as well as who know what other types of technology… maybe even your refrigerator. If there are HTML errors and the device parsing the code does not understand it, then your content is not accessible to the user.
I’ve seen developers struggle with an accessibility issue for ages just to find out that it was simply bad markup. Quite often, accessibility issues will magically disappear after the markup is fixed.
Asqatasun Contrast Finder
This is hands-down my favorite tool to share with others. Why? Do you have a special, amazing, perfect color you cannot live without… but it does not have enough contrast to meet accessibility standards? This tool compares your color to other colors and suggests extremely similar colors so you get your cake and can eat it too.
Accessibility Checklist
What distinguishes this checklist from others is its clean design and navigability, filtering capabilities, and simple suggestions on how to ensure that your site follows accessibility guidelines.
Digital A11y’s Understanding WCAG Success Criterion
There are a lot of possible accessibility issues and understanding your specific issue may take some research. The W3C’s Understanding WCAG 2.0 is a great place to start, but sometimes you need it a bit more broken down. Digital A11Y has put together a reference on every W3C accessibility standard and simplifies them with the most important points to remember when evaluating a site.
Browser Tools & Extensions
There are more and more built-in accessibility features right in your browser and extensions that you can install to expand your testing compatibility.
Wave Browser Extension
Need to review a single webpage fast? This tool is the quickest and easiest way to do a bare-bones accessibility audit. This is not a deep or perfect audit, but it is a great way to catch the low-hanging fruit.
Chrome’s Accessibility Developer Tools
If you need to get a little deeper into the code, Chrome’s Accessibility Developer Tools give you features that include the ability to run an audit on any page or inspect individual elements for accessibility. This tool also gets into more of the nitty-gritty of the ARIA standards.
Firefox Accessibility Inspector
Firefox has been making leaps and bounds in the last year on their Accessibility inspector. It gives you a great breakdown of what a computer sees when it looks at your HTML. You can dig into the properties of each node in the Accessibility Tree. It also lets you filter down the tree to just the elements that may be an accessibility issue.
Web Developer Toolbar Browser Extension
This tool isn’t specifically for accessibility, but it provides some really good ways to find out what might be missing on your site. You can view a document outline of your site to see where you are missing headers or view what images are missing alternative text.
Bookmarklets
Bookmarklets are important tools to keep in your toolbox because there’s no need to install anything to get the benefits. They work in multiple browsers and inside networks where users are not allowed to install extensions or other software.
JavaScript Bookmarklets for Accessibility Testing
These simple bookmarklets allow you to make your customized accessibility toolbar. Choose the ones that you find helpful, add them to your favorites bar, and away you go!
tota11y
This bookmarklet includes many of the standards features you find in most accessibility tools such as heading levels and alternative image text, but that is not why it’s on this list. What makes this tool different? It has a “Screen Reader Wand” which lets you see the text of what a screen reader will read aloud.
ANDI (Accessible Name & Description Inspector)
A friend turned me onto ANDI recently. This bookmarklet packs in so much I am surprised I missed it. It allows you to move from element to element and view accessibility information as you go. It also has situational features that only show up when you need them. To my surprise, I visited a page with iframes and there is an iframe too! Most importantly, when you dig into an issue, ANDI tells you not only what the issue is, but also why it is an issue and some suggestions on how it might be fixed.
HTML_CodeSniffer
What sets this bookmarklet apart is that it not only lets you pick which standards you want to apply to the website, but it also walks you through each error on the page, making it extremely easy to understand where the error is and what it means.
Color Extractor Bookmarklet
This bookmarklet does one thing, but it does it well. Simply use it on your site and it will copy all the colors that you have used in your CSS and show them in the Color Palette Accessibility Checker. This lets you see what combinations of colors are accessible.
If those tools do are not enough for you and you want more, then take a look at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) collection of tools called Web Accessibility Evaluation Tools List. They have cataloged a huge list of tools to help you evaluate the testing of your site.
