Checking if a site is 508 compliant

Question

I know the Visual Studio 2012 has an accessibility checker that checks for 508 compliance, but a portion of our content is dynamically generated using JavaScript and jQuery, and as such cannot be checked by Visual Studio.

Is there any resource that can be pointed at the website in action, once the content has been dynamically generated, to see if it is 508 compliant.

For example, we have a grid of results for a search that starts as an empty div. Only when you click a button the div is populated by not just the data but the HTML elements.

So, once I click the button, is there some addon I could then activate that would tell me if the table is 508 compliant, much like how Visual Studio does its check (and of course, just like with Visual Studio 2012, I don't expect it will be able to tell me everything that is compliant).

Answer 1

I did a google search and found this tool that does what you want. You can set it to scan an entire site, or go to a page and click a validation button (chrome and FF extensions) to validate that page. There are options to run w/w/o javasript/cookies.

www.totalvalidator.com/index.html

Answer 2

There is no replacement for hands on testing. If you're on Windows, download NVDA, run it and go through your site using the keyboard only. You can use VoiceOver for Mac, of ChromeVox on any platform.

At the very least, you should be able to navigate everything you could get to with the mouse, by only using the keyboard. So, start thinking about anything you have that only triggers on mouse events, and make sure they trigger on keyboard events as well.

For a quick and dirty automated tool, check out the WAVE toolbar by the WebAIM folks.

Answer 3

There are many different tools available from plug-ins to enterprise level compliance validation. Unfortunately, none of them are worthy of being solely responsible for reporting a website's non-compliance.

Developing for accessibility is just as much as an art form as developing responsive. The best way to maintain compliant sites is to invest your time into making that a functional requirement for all of your code. Get down with the spirit and not just the letter of the law.

To that end, the tools available will be useful. They can run their checks, and they'll each likely give you different responses. Try out screen readers. Understand keyboard navigation. Familiarize yourself with the assistive technology provided by default on your OS. Enlighten yourself as to what it is like to surf the web without a mouse. I found this tutorial by Google to be extremely helpful. The closest thing to what it sounds like you are asking for can be found at achecker.ca, where you can paste or upload markup, or link to a page on the web and get a report back. I CANNOT RECOMMEND STRONGLY ENOUGH THAT YOU DO NOT STOP THERE. There is an inherent business justification for making applications accessible.

So keep looking at other things: Hi-Software has paid offerings. You can also pay a firm like Vision Australia to maintain your compliance. Try the Web Accessibility Toolbar for IE (WAT). You should definitely check out the RampWEB Section 508 toolbar (and make a donation). Google has a screen reader plugin that is fairly straightforward to get started using (Chrome Vox). You can also read what the experts in our field and in the federal legislature are saying about 508 compliance:

• Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
• W3C on Accessibility
• Web Accessibility Initiative
• Health & Human Services & 508
• Information and Technical Assistance on the Americans with Disabilities Act
• Google's 508 Resources page
• IBM's take on 508
• Adobe on 508