Alexis Kestler
Making your website accessible is not only the right thing to do, but it‘s a valuable investment that safeguards your business from legal risks. Here, I‘m talking about web accessibility for your website or web application. It‘s the right thing to do because it helps people with certain disabilities access your site without trouble. The internet is available to all, and your site or app should be no exception.
Besides being the right thing, web accessibility protects your business by complying with local and global guidelines like the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). So web accessibility is something you can‘t afford to ignore.
Now you know it‘s important, but you might be confused about what it really is. Aren‘t you? Don‘t worry – I‘m here to help explain everything in this comprehensive guide. We‘ll cover what web accessibility is and why it matters. I‘ll also introduce you to some excellent tools that can test and monitor your site for accessibility. Let‘s dive in!
What is Web Accessibility and Why Does it Matter?
Web accessibility is a form of digital equality where everyone should be given equal access to a website, application, or software, regardless of their abilities. It‘s about making sure your online content and services can be easily used by people with disabilities.
If you want your site to be accessible to all, you need to comply with various web accessibility guidelines and regulations like:
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Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) – International standards for making web content more accessible.
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Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) – US federal law prohibiting discrimination based on disability.
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Revised Section 508 standards – US federal requirements for accessible electronic and information technology.
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Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) – Provincial legislation in Ontario, Canada mandating accessibility.
To comply with these standards, your website or app needs to have certain accessible features, such as:
- Screen reader compatibility
- Keyboard accessibility
- Color contrast for text
- Captions for audio/video
- Clear navigation
- Sufficient time limits
- Avoiding seizures triggers like flashing content
You essentially need to modify your online content and interface so people with all types of disabilities can easily use it. This includes people with:
- Visual impairments
- Hearing loss
- Limited dexterity
- Cognitive disabilities
- Neurological disorders
- Age-related limitations
Making your digital content accessible opens it up for use by millions of people with disabilities. In the US alone, 61 million adults have some type of disability, representing 25% of the adult population.
Why Web Accessibility Matters for Your Business
Here are some of the key reasons why web accessibility is crucial for any business today:
Reach More Customers
Your website is often the first touchpoint between your business and potential new customers. If your site isn‘t accessible, you are shutting out millions of people with disabilities from engaging with your brand and becoming customers.
By making your site compliant with accessibility standards, you open it up for use by a large underserved audience. You gain opportunities to market to them and convert more leads.
Enhance Brand Reputation
Being more inclusive and accessible builds tremendous goodwill and trust with customers. It demonstrates that you care about providing an excellent experience for all people, regardless of ability.
Accessibility projects a positive brand image to the wider public and your existing customer base. People want to support companies that do good.
Improve User Experience
Accessible design enhances the overall usability and experience for all your visitors. Simple changes like color contrast and keyboard shortcuts create a smoother, more enjoyable journey for everyone.
Your site will be easier to use across different devices, browsers, and scenarios. User frustration goes down.
Boost SEO Rankings
Making your website more usable and functional through accessibility improvements directly helps your SEO. Search engines favor sites that connect with users and provide value.
Traffic and conversions can improve since accessible sites rank well for organic searches. One study found a 120% increase in clicks after an enterprise website redesigned for accessibility.
Avoid Legal Risks
In many countries, web accessibility is mandated by law for businesses and government entities. You open yourself to potential lawsuits and penalties by ignoring standards.
Settling an ADA lawsuit in the US costs anywhere from $20,000 to $100,000+ on average. Stay compliant and avoid these costs.
Clearly, web accessibility benefits both your customers and your bottom line. But exactly how can you monitor and test that your site meets requirements? Let‘s check out some handy tools.
Note: The following tools help test site accessibility-readiness. To make your site fully compliant, you‘ll also need solutions that actively fix accessibility issues.
Top 8 Web Accessibility Testing Tools
Here are the top tools I recommend for evaluating your website‘s accessibility:
1. Accessibility Checker
Accessibility Checker is a user-friendly automated testing tool created by accessibility experts in 2020. It aims to bridge the gap between technical WCAG guidelines and non-technical users.
The audit scans your website or web app and identifies accessibility issues to fix. It delivers an in-depth report classifying problems as:
- Urgent – Critical errors that absolutely must get addressed.
- Secondary – Less severe but still important to resolve.
- Passed – Elements that meet WCAG standards.
A key feature is the tool explains each issue in plain language and ties it to the disability it impacts. For example, missing form field labels are shown to affect blind users who rely on screen readers.
This context helps non-technical teams better understand the real-world effects of seemingly abstract WCAG failures. It empowers everyone to participate in accessibility.
Accessibility Checker also provides helpful educational resources like the definitive WCAG guide and a detailed guide on ADA compliance.
2. accessiBe
accessiBe is an AI-powered web accessibility SaaS platform used by leading enterprises like Toyota, Dell, and Mastercard.
Their free accessScan tool lets you test the accessibility of any web page through automated auditing. Just enter a URL and accessScan will analyze the page against WCAG criteria.
It generates a detailed report summarizing the accessibility level as:
- Compliant – Legally compliant and accessible.
- Semi-compliant – Needs work to achieve full compliance.
- Non-compliant – Requires significant improvements.
You can even walk through violations step-by-step to understand failures from a user perspective.
For ongoing monitoring, accessiBe provides a full web accessibility solution that actively scans sites and apps, detects issues, and provides fixes through real-time overlays. This keeps you perpetually compliant.
3. WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool
Created by WebAIM, WAVE is a longtime leader in accessibility testing. Their toolkit helps evaluate web content against common errors.
To use WAVE, simply enter any URL. It will scan the page and highlight any failures like missing alt text, poor contrast, empty links, etc. Handy icons make issues easy to spot.
WAVE extensions for Chrome and Firefox also let you evaluate accessibility directly in your browser. This helps spot problems on locally stored, password-protected, or dynamic pages.
For automated testing, WAVE offers an API, the WAVE Runner service, and a VIP subscription. These make it easy to scan larger sites and applications.
Their premium Pope Tech add-on delivers enterprise-level reporting and tracking. It‘s great for monitoring compliance across organizations.
4. axe by Deque
axe is a robust set of accessibility testing tools used by leading companies like Google, Microsoft, and Intel.
The axe browser extension lets you analyze any web page or app directly in Chrome or Firefox. It identifies common failures, provides suggestions to fix them, and lets you export results.
axe also comes in multiple enterprise packages:
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axe DevTools – Test sites as you build them right inside browser dev tools.
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axe Auditor – Audit across large sites with CI/CD integration.
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axe Monitor – Continuously monitor production sites and apps. Provides dynamic dashboards to track compliance over time.
These tools leverage the robust axe-core library, allowing for advanced WCAG testing. Automated checks find around 50% more issues than human auditors alone.
For organizations, axe provides a full suite of solutions to embed accessibility through the entire dev lifecycle.
5. Web Accessibility by Level Access
Web Accessibility offers automated testing of single pages as well as complete site audits.
Enter any URL to scan a page. You‘ll get a compliance score from 0-100% showing issues to fix. For full sites, it crawls every page and provides a multi-page report.
Detailed detections identify the affected WCAG criteria and severity from A (lowest) to AAA (highest). You can filter and visualize issues in different ways.
Level Access also offers remediation services by certified experts who can actually perform fixes. This turns insights into action.
Pricing starts free for single page scans. Site-wide audits are $295 per scan or require a subscription.
6. Color Contrast Analyzers
Proper color contrast is mandatory for accessibility under WCAG 2.1 guidelines. Text and backgrounds must have sufficient brightness difference so content remains legible.
Specialized color contrast tools like Toptal and WebAIM make testing contrast easy.
Just input your foreground and background colors in hex, RGB, or by color picker. The tools will output your contrast ratio and indicate if it passes standards.
For quick checks as you design/develop, handy browser extensions like a11y and Stark will overlay contrast ratios right on elements.
These validators help ensure suitable contrast for all users, including those with visual impairments and color blindness.
7. Silktide
Silktide offers automated accessibility testing combined with human auditing. This unique hybrid approach provides in-depth insights.
Silktide scans your entire site against WCAG standards. Machine testing detects basic issues like missing alt text. Expert auditors then review and identify deeper UX failures like confusing navigation.
You get reports detailing the number, severity, and location of all accessibility problems. Issues are clearly explained with action steps prioritized by difficulty.
Silktide also stands out with features like:
- Mobile/responsive site testing
- Integration with site CMS for automatic retesting
- Tracking team progress with historical reports
- PDF and document accessibility audits
This hybrid approach makes Silktide testing very comprehensive. Pricing starts at $99 per page.
8. Tenon Accessibility Tool
Tenon is an online automated testing tool that audits accessibility via the WCAG 2.1 guidelines. It scans your entire site or individual pages.
The detailed report highlights errors and explains how to fix them. You can filter issues by type, web page, severity, and WCAG criteria. An accessibility scorecard summarizes your overall compliance.
Tenon also integrates with GitHub, allowing you to trigger scans on code commits and pull requests. This bakes accessibility right into your development workflows.
Plans start at 100 scans for $99/month. It offers a 7-day free trial to test it out.
How to Monitor and Test Web Accessibility Going Forward
Hopefully this guide has illuminated what web accessibility is and why it‘s so vital for your online business today. Accessibility opens doors to new markets and protects you legally.
The tools covered here make it easy to start evaluating the accessibility of your website or web application. Testing gives you insights to create a detailed improvement plan.
But testing alone is just the first step. The key is continuously monitoring your live site and proactively fixing emerging issues before they impact users.
For ongoing monitoring and maintenance, a full web accessibility solution like accessiBe is extremely helpful. It scans your actual production pages and detects new failures in real-time.
When errors get introduced, automatic AI-powered overlays instantly fix them for users while alerting you. This keeps your site perpetually accessible and compliant.
Web accessibility is an ongoing journey requiring vigilance. But with the right solutions in place, you can confidently serve all users while avoiding legal risks. Reach out if I can help explain anything further!
