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Accessibility Tester - Preliminary Accessibility Review

Personal Web-site of Mark Faben - freelance Web-Accessibility Tester

The preliminary accessibility review protocol I use is adapted from that suggested by the W3C in their document Preliminary Review of Web Sites for Accessibility

I have adapted, used and modified this accessibility testing procedure over many years of Accessibility testing, taking it far beyond many other Preliminary test procedures offered by other accessibility testing firms. Further, I will not use a single 'strict' set of guidelines in my procedures; rather my entire methodology is adapted to suit your website, so you can gain the most from the accessibility testing procedures and reports.

The preliminary accessibility review is able to identify some (but not all) key accessibility problems on a Web site.

The preliminary Accessibility review does not examine every page of the web site, and will not include all accessibility issues that may affect website accessibility.

However, a preliminary accessibility review is very useful to identify several key accessibility features, and is vital to ensure a web site is effectively ready to undergo any further testing procedures.

Preliminary reviews cannot determine a site's accessibility against the WCAG guidelines, as it does not test for each of the criteria contained within these guidelines, however, it is an important step enroot to full conformance accessibility testing (Accessibility Audit), which does test to these nationally recognized accessibility guidelines.

The preliminary accessibility testing review protocol involves manual checking of representative pages on your Website, combined with limited use of several semi-automated accessibility evaluation tools.

In broad terms my test procedure consists of at least the following:

Identifying a representative selection of pages from the website:
- All pages users enter the site on
- Pages with various examples of content;
  - Tables
  - Forms
  - JavaScript (or other) applications
  - Textual content
  - Graphical content
Browser testing with Internet explorer, Mozilla Firefox, and at least one text only browser such as WebbIE
Examine representative pages with at least two automated accessibility tools
Check manually any HTML/CSS code for pages where problems are identified

With each browser I examine accessibility issues including but not limited to-

Tab browsing
Examine how the site works with varying font size
Altering the screen resolution
Check for text equivalents to audio content
Check for appropriate alternative text for all images
Examine graphical links
Examine how "meaningful" links are when examined out of page context
Examine how meaning is retained when pages are examined in a serial fashion (such as happens with a screen reader and in text only browsers)
Examine the pages with a text browser to see if the equivalent information is available as it is in a GUI browser

Most preliminary accessibility reviews would stop at, or before this point. I refuse to provide anything other than the best, most effective accessibility testing I can, which is why, at this point I additionally include the following in my Preliminary accessibility testing review protocol:

Task user-testing

The user is, of course myself; a blind computer user accessing the website using the JAWS screen reader. By "task" I refer to my identifying one or two key tasks a user would typically perform on your web site:

If it is an online store, finding a product and making a purchase-
If it is an informational site then finding appropriate key information

You have decided to make your web site accessible, and so it is important that core functionality works:

If core functionality depends on a complex form, can I tell which fields are required?
If it is a shopping cart, can I see how much I have spent before making the purchase?
If it is an educational/informational site can I locate and read the information and access any sign in/registration forms?

All websites differ, so the tasks I will identify as "typical user tasks" will be specific to the site concerned.

After identifying a few common user tasks (typically no fewer than 2, but preferably three or four), I then proceed to attempt to complete these tasks using:

JAWS screen reader with either Mozilla Firefox or Internet explorer (typically both)
With a free (open source) screen reader such as Thunder or NVDA
an alternative text browser (such as WebbIE).

I then document how easy these tasks were to complete; In particular identifying any issues on the site which hampered or potentially even prevented my completing the tasks.

Deliverables from the Preliminary Accessibility Review

Following completion of a Preliminary Accessibility Review you will receive a full written report by E-Mail. The report will contain:

Details of the procedures used
Addresses of the pages tested
Detailed results of the test procedures
Specific examples with code from the site (where necessary)
A suggested 'idea' of which Conformance level the site would likely reach, and what would be atainible
Examples of how site accessibility could be improved (including code if necessary)
Detailed written results of Task User accessibility testing (which delves towards the areas of usability testing)

Additionally I will be available post review to talk over the telephone to interested parties (designers, coders, managers etc), to discuss and explain any aspect of the testing procedures or written report.

Please contact me to have a free estimate of how much a preliminary Accessibility review would cost on your website; I can be contacted from my Contact page

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Page last modified: Friday 24 September 2010 16:25