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Re: Testing color contrast as a screen reader user

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From: John E Brandt
Date: Mar 18, 2013 1:43PM

I have recently started using the HTML_CodeSniffer by Squiz. You add it as a
bookmarklet, and when clicked on, it analyzes the current page for
accessibility errors and warnings using the three levels of WCAG or Sect 508
standards. It seems to do a pretty good job of analyzing color contrast and
can put a "pointer" on the place where the "error" occurs. This is very
helpful when used with FireBug to isolate the CSS code in the Content
Management System that needs to be fixed.

http://squizlabs.github.com/HTML_CodeSniffer/

~j

John E. Brandt
www.jebswebs.com
<EMAIL REMOVED>
207-622-7937
Augusta, Maine, USA

-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Birkir R.
Gunnarsson
Sent: Monday, March 18, 2013 3:25 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: [WebAIM] Testing color contrast as a screen reader user

Hey guys

What are the best solutions for detecting color contrast issues on a webpage
as a screen reader user (hence, someone awfully un-sighted)?
If you know the color values, there are various checkers out there that can
be used.
I had some issues using wave.webaim.org on a website. It detected 6 color
contrast errors, but my colleague said they were wrong and not comparing the
right things (again, Wave is awesome, so no one take that as undue
criticism, and may be my colleague is wrong, just hard for me to judge).
If there is a tool that can be used accessibly to color analyze a page and
point out sections that do not comply with WCAG contrast ratio specs, it'd
be awfully neat.
These are very common issues , especially lately, and a lot of partially
sighted folks are complaining to me about it, so if I could quickly analyze
a large number of pages just for that and sort of start up a campaign to try
and make people aware of it, that'd be neat.

Similarly, keyboard focus outline issues. Do the standard accessibility
tools detect and report on vissible keyboard focus outlines or not?
I have not seen this with the tools I have tested, so I don't know whether
the focus outline has been just fine on the pages I've tested with these
tools, or whether the tool does not test for that (and may be it is
something that has to be tested manually, though it seems the focus is
defined and styled in the CSS).
Basically I want to work very hard myself to independently do a non-screen
reader specific analysis. There are some things I can't do well, things that
are just purely visual judgements, but I very strongly want to avoid giving
anyone the impression that my accessibility analysis has to do with whether
a page works with a screen reader, even if it is important.
I have solved this by teaming up with a colleague, who does the visual
stuff, and I do all ARIA and screen reader things, but the more I can do
independently, the quicker I can work and the more pages I can test, albeit
loosely.
Cheers
-B
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