Identifying and fixing accessibility issues can be a daunting task for developers and designers. Fortunately, there are a many tools available to help with this process. These are the (free!) tools we are using when evaluating your website or app.
Web
Most of accessibility testing is done manually. There are no tools that can 100% check and validate the accessibility of a website or app. But there are tools that can help you run automated checks for part of it. There are also tools to guide you in manual testing.
Accessibility Insights: this is a free and open source extension for Chrome and Edge guides you well in testing your website. It does both automated testing and manual testing, where it guides you with each step. They also offer a desktop app for Windows apps.
- Sa11y: an open source tool that highlights accessibility issues. It is quick to set up and easy to use. It is available as a bookmarklet for any browser and as a javascript plugin.
aXe Devtools Extension: this automated accessibility extension analyzes web pages for accessibility issues and generates a report that can be used to fix them. The basic browser extension is free and available for Firefox, Chrome, and Edge.
WAVE: this tool provides visual feedback on web pages to indicate accessibility issues. It highlights errors, alerts, and structural elements. They offer free browser extensions for Firefox, Chrome, and Edge.
Colour Contrast Analyser (CCA): an open source app for Windows and Mac. After installing this tool you can use the color picker anywhere on your screen to see if the color contrast is sufficient.
Use a screen reader
Testing with screen readers is absolutely necessary when evaluating the accessibility of your website or desktop application. This survey by WebAIM shows which types of screen readers are most used, and also which operating system and browsers are most popular.
For Windows, we recommend downloading NVDA. It is free and supports many languages.
iOS users have VoiceOver built in.
Do you want to learn how to test with screenreaders? WebAIM answers the most common questions about screenreader testing in this post. They also have a guide on how to start using VoiceOver.
App
App testing is almost entirely done using a screen reader. Android has TalkBack built in and iOS users have VoiceOver. The Appt Foundation offers a free starter guide on how to test apps with and without a screen reader.
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