WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: Validation equals Accessibility?

for

From: Gareth Dart
Date: Apr 16, 2007 5:50AM

Valid markup does not equate to accessible markup, unfortunately. They
are both very important but are in many ways separate issues.

There are several options for software that tests the accessibility of a
given page - I'm certain that others will be able to add more but the
ones I use are the firefox extensions 'Web Developer' and the extension
'HTML validator' - both have options for providing feedback on
accessibility as well as validity and are available from the Mozilla
site. I have also recently been trying out the Mozilla Accessibility
Extension, which I believe is authored by a contributor to this list.
There are online tools too: http://www.cynthiasays.com/ Cynthia Says
being one of them.

One caveat I'll add is that running your pages through an automated
testing script of some kind is a helpful step in identifiying any
accessibility issues but is not, by itself, a solution. They won't
always spot everything - only thorough testing by a real human person
will do that.

Cheers,

G