WebAIM: Website Accessibility Evaluation Tool

Section 508 of the Americans with Disabilities Act requires that federal agencies make their electronic and information technology accessible to people with disabilities. Section 255 of the Communications Act, as amended by the Telecommunications act of 1996, requires that electronic communications for the purpose of goods and services be accessible to people with disabilities. What does this all mean for most people? These acts clearly state that if you provide goods or services through a public facing website it must be accessible to people with disabilities.

It is much easier to create websites from the ground up with accessibility in mind than to retroactively make them accessible to satisfy a check list. As a whole the web still has a long way to go before it's truly accessibly by everyone. Don't get me wrong, it's much better than it was even 5 years ago.

 WebAIM, a non-profit organization founded in 1999 and based at Utah State University, is committed to making the web more accessible to people with disabilities. They provide training, evaluation, and consulting services on how to make the web a better place for everyone. As a part of the services provided by WebAIM they have created a tool called Wave. Wave is a tool for evaluating the accessibility of websites. There are three ways to use Wave. The first is to use the http://wave.webaim.org main page and enter the URL/weblink into the field and press or click return. This will generate a report detailing any issues the site may have. The second is to use a web browser plugin for Firefox or Chrome. When using this method there is a button added to the browsers navigation that allows for report generations. The third is more for enterprise/corporate level websites. DinoLytics, which uses the Wave engine, can provide accessibility reports on a site-wide level.

When using the Wave tool it is important to remember it's just a tool and method for evaluation. The tool will sometime flag things that are not exactly errors. In the report side bar red icon indicates accessibility errors that need to be corrected. The green icon represents areas in the site where the accessibility features can be approved upon. Additional icons, mainly the yellow icons, are things that should probably be checked.

More information on the tool and website accessibility can be found at https://webaim.org and http://wave.webaim.org.