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From: julian.rickards
Date: Thu, Jul 17 2003 9:10AM
Subject: RE: evaluating Web accessibility software
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> I'm among a group of state employees in South Carolina who
> are evaluating
> various Web accessibility testing and validation tools, such
> as Bobby,
> LIFT, HiSoftware... If we find a tool we like and that we
> can afford, we
> may try to purchase a state-wide licence for the product for
> all state
> agencies to use.


You will receive other similar responses to this I presume but this question
has been asked before, recently. There have been several comparitive reviews
of various accessibility testing software. For starters, you could go to
http://webaim.org/products/evalandrepair/. Under the review section of
http://www.accessify.com, there is a review of LIFT.

Jules


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From: Jon Gunderson
Date: Mon, Jul 21 2003 9:18AM
Subject: Re: evaluating Web accessibility software
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The major problem with all these evelaution tools is they promote
accessible repair rather than accessible design. This leads to web designs that
may technically meet the requirements of a particular accessibility
specification (508 or WCAG), but are not functionally accessible to people
with disabilities. The majority of these tools require manual checking
of the accessibility markup (many times ignored because the Bobby
approved sticker comes up any way one ALT text is available for all
images) and therefore require some knowledge knowledge of accessibility by
the author.


I suggest that you attempt to look a functional accessible testing
[2] using a browser like Opera, that allows authors to easily view their resource
in high contrast and text renderings and navigate the structure of a web
resource using keyboard commands. Use your money to provide training on
functional accessibility.

I would be happy to talk to you more about it.

Jon

[1] Opera, http://www.opera.com
[2] http://cita.rehab.uiuc.edu/presentations/2003-01-09-UIC/part4/slide27.html

On Thu, 17 Jul 2003, Wendy R. Mullin wrote:

> Hi everyone -
>
> I'm among a group of state employees in South Carolina who are evaluating
> various Web accessibility testing and validation tools, such as Bobby,
> LIFT, HiSoftware... If we find a tool we like and that we can afford, we
> may try to purchase a state-wide licence for the product for all state
> agencies to use.
>
> Question 1:
>
> We would like to know if any other state is doing this too -
> * evaluating Web accessibility testing and validation tools at the
> state-wide level
> * and either purchasing a state-wide licence for the product or making a
> recommendation on software purchases to state agencies
>
> If so, we'd be interested in knowing
> * what process you are using to evaluate these software tools
> * and what product(s) you ended up recommending or purchasing
> * as well as what made you choose a particular product over another.
>
> Question 2:
>
> We would like to know what others think of the various Web accessibility
> testing and validation tools available, both free (such as The Wave,...)
> and fee-based (such as Bobby, LIFT, HiSoftware, etc....). What tools do
> you use, and why? Have you had positive or negative experiences with the
> companies selling these tools? Etc...
>
> If anyone would rather not send your opinions to the list, you can send
> them to me privately at = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = .
>
> Many thanks.
>
> Wendy
>
> Wendy R. Mullin
> Web Developer, University of South Carolina
> 1244 Blossom Street, Columbia, South Carolina 29208
> voice: 803-777-6785 | fax: 803-777-4149
> = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = | http://isg.csd.sc.edu/~wmullin/
>
>
> ----
> To subscribe, unsubscribe, or view list archives,
> visit http://www.webaim.org/discussion/
>


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From: Jeff Finlay
Date: Tue, Jul 22 2003 2:02PM
Subject: Re: evaluating Web accessibility software
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> ...leads to web designs that may technically meet the requirements of
> a particular accessibility specification (508 or WCAG), but are not
> functionally accessible to people with disabilities.

Jon, while I believe the best test of online materials being accessible
is whether the user can access them, could you give some examples of
what you mean here? I do agree with you accessibility needs to be about
people's skills and needs rather than programs.

On a side note we invested in RAMP, from Deque. We're waiting for their
version 2.5, but based on what I've seen so far I wouldn't recommend it.
It does an ok job with individual pages but crashes when asked to
perform repair tests of root directories or sites. To Wendy Mullin: If
you are buying an enterprise version of some accessibility tool, make
sure you see how it actually works on sites rather than trusting to the
wow effect of a demo version run from a laptop.

Jeff


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From: Jon Gunderson
Date: Fri, Jul 25 2003 8:39AM
Subject: Re: evaluating Web accessibility software
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Jeff,
I will be developing some on-online tutorials next month and will send the
URL to the list when available.

But basically with Opera you can do the following things:

1. Select a high contrast style sheet from the View/Style menu to see what
changes to high contrast. All text should be in high contrast.

2. If you change the window size does the content wrap to the new window
size so that the user does not need to horizontally scroll.

3. As you change font size (- and + key on numeric keypad) does text reflow
to the change in font sizes

4. Do links make sense in isolation. Use Control+J to bring up a list of
just link text.

5. Is there proper use of headers, Use the W and S keys to navigate the
headers of the document. it should move focus to the major topics or areas
of the web resource.

6. Select the ignore tables style option in View/Styles menu to see if the
document makes sense linearized. This is important for screen reader
compatibility and also from people with learning disabilities to simplify
the layout of the document.

7. have you uses any images to style text. These should be changed to text
and sylized with CSS.

8. Turn off images (G key) to test if ALT text is present for
images. Note: ALT for AREA element is not rendered by any major browser,
so should be considered and inaccessible technique, unless there are
redundant text links in the document.

9. Test ACCESSKEY bindings (Press ESCape key and then press ACCESSKEY)

The beauty of Opera is that all these things can be done in one or two
keystrokes or mouse clicks. making it easily to go between the authors
preferred styling and styling a user needs. These types of tests really
strain pages that use out of date graphical tesign techniques for styling
content and therefore leads to designs that are better for everyone.

Jon


At 10:35 AM 7/21/2003 -0400, you wrote:
> > ...leads to web designs that may technically meet the requirements of
> > a particular accessibility specification (508 or WCAG), but are not
> > functionally accessible to people with disabilities.
>
>Jon, while I believe the best test of online materials being accessible
>is whether the user can access them, could you give some examples of
>what you mean here? I do agree with you accessibility needs to be about
>people's skills and needs rather than programs.
>
>On a side note we invested in RAMP, from Deque. We're waiting for their
>version 2.5, but based on what I've seen so far I wouldn't recommend it.
>It does an ok job with individual pages but crashes when asked to
>perform repair tests of root directories or sites. To Wendy Mullin: If
>you are buying an enterprise version of some accessibility tool, make
>sure you see how it actually works on sites rather than trusting to the
>wow effect of a demo version run from a laptop.
>
>Jeff
>
>
>----
>To subscribe, unsubscribe, or view list archives,
>visit http://www.webaim.org/discussion/

Jon Gunderson, Ph.D., ATP
Coordinator of Assistive Communication and Information Technology
Division of Rehabilitation - Education Services
MC-574
College of Applied Life Studies
University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign
1207 S. Oak Street, Champaign, IL 61820

Voice: (217) 244-5870
Fax: (217) 333-0248

E-mail: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =

WWW: http://cita.rehab.uiuc.edu/
WWW: http://www.staff.uiuc.edu/~jongund



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