This page contains material related to a presentation at the Web Accessibility Best Practices Evaluation Training in Sankt Augustin, Germany on 25 October, 2005, as part of the WAI-TIES Project (WAI - Training, Implementation, Education, Support). It is not intended to stand-alone; rather, it is primarily provided as reference material for participants in the training.
Scope of Training and Materials: This one-day training focused on select topics that were particularly suited to the circumstances of this specific training session. It did not to cover all aspects of evaluating Web accessibility, and did not cover all Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 1.0 checkpoints.
No Endorsement or Recommendation of Evaluation Tools: W3C/WAI does not endorse Web accessibility evaluation tools and does not recommend one tool over another. Some tools were listed, demonstrated, and used in activities in this training. Mention of a specific tool does not imply endorsement nor recommendation. WAI does provide a comprehensive list of Evaluation, Repair, and Transformation Tools for Web Content Accessibility.
Principles of Evaluation
Shadi Abou-Zahra, W3C / WAI
Last updated: 1 November 2005
Quick evaluation
- Modifying browser controls
- Using alternate browsers
- Automated evaluation tools
Challenges
- Skilled evaluators
- Accessibility guidelines
- Relevant Web technologies
- How people with disabilities use the Web
- Limited time & money
Getting started
- Determine purpose
- Determine selection
- Determine thoroughness
- ...carry out evaluation
Purpose
- Improve service for customers
- Fullfill legal requirements
- Building awareness or advocating
- Tool for teaching accessibility
- Management needs to know status
- Third-party conformance testing
- Other...
Selection
- Templates and style sheets
- Home page, Important pages
- Frequently accessed pages
- Transactions and paths
- Different page layouts
- Different developers
Throughness
- Preliminary - quick check to catch major issues
- Conformance - thorough check to determine conformance
- Comprehensive - involves testing with users as well
Ready to go...
- Determined purpose
- Determined selection
- Determined thoroughness
Evaluation vs. Validation
There's no magic, evaluation tools need humans:
- tools can help detect barriers,
- tools can help determine barriers,
- tools can help repair barriers,
- tools need human judgement.
Analogy: spell-checking tools.
Evaluation tools help!
- Automatic checks
- several checks, possibly across multiple pages, without user intervention
- Manual checks
- assist users to determine specific issues, usually on single pages only
Usages of evaluation tools
- Generating reports
- Step-by-step evaluations
- In-page feedback
- Page transformations
Some tools provide different modes for checking.
Selecting tools
- User interface
- Checkpoint coverage
- Integration
- Web technology support
- Output formats
Example evaluation
- Modifying browser controls
- Using alternate browsers
- Automated evaluation tools
Bottom line
- Evaluate for the user
- Caution: user claims
- Caution: tool claims