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testing web apps for accessibility

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From: Sam Foster
Date: Mar 20, 2006 9:40PM

hi all,

I have quite a bit of experience developing and testing accessible
content-driven web sites, but less in the application area.
We have a suite of web apps ranging from really inaccessible to almost
passable that we want to test for accessibility (section 508 compliance
specifically) over the course of the year. The purpose is to establish a
baseline to measure future improvements against, and obviously to
identify areas that need work and any successes that shouldnt be thrown
out with the bath water. These are complex apps with hundreds, possibly
thousands of screens. We are a small team with lots of other duties.

Using the standalone version of Bobby we immediately hit problems on the
first screens of the first app. It wouldnt authenticate properly,
failing to fill in the login form with the configured name/password. And
when I think we got it past that hurdle it stopped in its tracks: pretty
much every link in the main console uses the javascript: protocol, and
launches a popup, and it didnt follow any of them.
Now, I recognize that's some black marks right there, but our task
remains nonetheless. Our workaround currently is to mirror flat html
versions of each screen and run Bobby against each individually. Ugh.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to proceed, other tools or
processes? I need some data I can take to the product owners and
developers that identifies issues, allows for prioritizing fixes and
helps steer future development.

There's other points that the html-analysing tools cant catch that I'd
like to - like text size and contast, like the size of "hit targets"
that need to be clicked/dragged, appropriate color usage.. are there
tools or processes out there that can help at all in capturing these
kind of issues? Do any of the accessibility consultants have sample
reports available that might provide guidance? Again, for a single page
I'd know how to go about this, but I'm looking for a bigger hammer.

We dont have budget to put this out to an outside firm this time around,
though that's probably that's the way to go. I want to start the ball
rolling and demonstrate both the value of testing for and developing for
accessibility. I also want to understand this field better personally,
so I'm reluctant to farm it out entirely.

thanks for any advice,

Sam

thanks
Sam