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Accessibility information page
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Check Compliance
A variety of tools are available to evaluate how well a website complies with accessibility standards.
A-Prompt™
(aprompt.snow.utoronto.ca/)
A-Prompt™ is a Windows-based accessibility tool developed by the University of Toronto and the University of Wisconsin. A-Prompt evaluates websites based on the W3C's Web Accessibility Guidelines version 1.0 and can be downloaded for free. A French language version was released in 2002.
Ask Alice™
(http://askalice.ssbtechnologies.com:8080/adobe-askalice/index.html)
Ask Alice™ is a free website accessibility evaluation offered by SSB Technologies (ssbtechnologies.com). SSB Technologies works with Adobe to provide web accessibility solutions like Adobe® GoLive®, SSB InSight LE™, and SSB InFocus™.
Bobby™
(bobby.watchfire.com/bobby/html/en/index.jsp)
Bobby™ will evaluate a site for W3C guidelines or Section 508 regulations and is probably the best known evaluation tool. Bobby indicates when a code guideline has been violated (with Bobby hats) and recommends manual checks for items it cannot verify (question marks). It also provides links to the relevant Section 508 requirement or W3C guideline, which contain examples of code. You are limited in the number of pages that can be checked at a time (which is a bother), although Bobby 5.0, an unlimited version, can be downloaded (www.elicense.com/watchfire/store/index.asp) for $299.
Cynthia Says™
(www.cynthiasays.com)
Cynthia Says is a user friendly compliance checking tool that can be imbedded into a site for easy access. For example, this website contains the Cynthia Says™ Tool for evaluating sites. Cynthia provides a detailed checklist of accessibility requirements, location of problem code, source code for the site being tested including line numbers, and links to explanations on the W3C site.
Macromedia Dreamweaver™ Accessibility Suite
(www.usablenet.com)
UsableNet offers the Macromedia Dreamweaver™ Accessibility Suite (www.usablenet.com/frontend/508as_entry.jsp) as a free extension that enables accessibility testing in Dreamweaver. UsableNet also sells a number of products and services for evaluating and correcting website accessibility.
The WAVE™
(wave.webaim.org)
The WAVE™ checks for W3C and Section 508 code violations and indicates how a screen reader will navigate through a site. Note that it does not recognize tabindexes, however, so you will have to check those manually. The WAVE provides a visual evaluation of the site, which some people find easier to review than tools that rely primarily on text.
Vischeck™
(www.vischeck.com)
The Vischeck™ website checks readability of websites, or images with respect to color blindness.
