WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: looking for pricing information ofvarious accessibility testing tools

for

From: Cliff Tyllick
Date: Dec 8, 2008 8:50AM

Shirang, the most comprehensive review that I'm aware of is Jim Thatcher's, at http://jimthatcher.com/site_resources.htm

As Peter said, many useful tools are open source. I'm a bit wary of your perception that a tool would be able to "automatically fix the bugs" or, beyond a certain extent, "provide recommendations to resolve the issue." Although automated processes can identify many potential accessibility issues, in most cases only a human can determine whether the potential issue is actually an issue. The simplest example:
--Does each image need an alt tag? (Of course. Software can easily check for a missing alt tag.)
--Is it OK for the alt tag to be empty? (Perhaps. Only a human can tell.)
--Is it OK for the alt tag to contain information? (Sometimes. Again, only a human can tell.)
--Is the information in the right information. (Hmmm. That's often arguable. Only a human can tell, but often no two humans will agree.)

So software would have to flag every image and say one of these:
--The alt tag is missing. Add an appropriate one, even if it's empty.
--The alt tag is empty. Check it and see if it needs content. If it does, add content that is appropriate, meaningful, and helpful.
--The alt tag has content. Check it and see if it should be empty. If it shouldn't be empty, make sure the content is appropriate, meaningful, and helpful.

There are open source agents that do that.

Cliff Tyllick
Web development coordinator
Agency Communications Division
Texas Commission on Environmental Quality
512-239-4516
<EMAIL REMOVED>

>>> Shrirang Prakash Sahasrabudhe < <EMAIL REMOVED> > 12/8/2008 4:37 AM >>>
Hi Peter
I am looking at tools used for automated accessibility testing of websites.
Tool that runs through underlying html and reports the accessibility bugs.
I am interested in tools possessing capability to either automatically fix the bugs or provide recommendations to resolve the issue.
Target audience is designers, developers, testers.
I've used Wave for sometime, but want to know details of best and most utilized commercial tool in the web accessibility testing space.
Thanks
Shrirang
-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED> [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf of Peter Krantz
Sent: Monday, December 08, 2008 3:34 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] looking for pricing information of various accessibility testing tools

On Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 9:23 AM, Shrirang Prakash Sahasrabudhe
< <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> Dear all:
> I am looking for the pointers for products which can assess the website compliance towards WCAG 1.0 or WCAG 2.0 guidelines
> I would also like to know their product license fees/ pricing models.
> I've gone through list of tools available at http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/tools/complete
> But not sure about pricing models of these tools.
> Is there any study available comparing the tools on the basis of cost/benefit?
> Any help towards this would be highly appreciated.

Please note that many of the tools are open source software and/or
free (from a cost perspective). Their abilities and target audience
vary greatly so to be able to do a comparison you need to be more
specific on what it is that you want to achieve.

Regards,

Peter