Accessibility evaluation tools
This is just a small selection of tools available. You will find many more on WAI's Web Accessibility Evaluation Tools. See also Selecting Web Accessibility Evaluation Tools.
- A complex table inspector
A favelet/bookmarklet that allows you to inspect the accessibility of the markup of complex tables.
(Gez Lemon) - accessED
"accessED is a tool that allows you to test your site for conformance to W3C accessibility guidelines." Developed at education.au. - aChecker
Evaluates web pages for accessibility problems and displays a warning message whenever a file fails to meet an established accessibility guideline. - aDesigner
aDesigner is a disability simulator that helps web designers ensure that their pages are accessible and usable by the visually impaired.The tool looks at such elements as the degree of color contrast on the page, the ability of users to change the font size, the appropriateness of alternate text for images, and the availability of links in the page to promote navigability. The tool also checks the pages's compliance with accessibility guidelines. The result of this analysis is a report listing the problems that would prevent accessibility and usability by visually impaired users. In addition, each page is given an overall score. With this information, web developers get immediate feedback and can address these obstacles before the pages are published. - aPrompt
A-Prompt examines web pages for barriers to accessibility, performs automatic repairs when possible, and assists the author in manual repairs when necessary. - Backward compatibility viewer
An online tool that shows how pages look in older browsers. - Colour scheme generator
It will generate colour schemes based on one (base) colour and allow you to simulate how each scheme will look like to people with particular types of colour blindness. - Colour Contrast Analyser for Web Pages
"It is a tool for checking foreground & background colour combinations to determine if they provide good colour visibility. Determining "colour visibility" is based on algorithms suggested by the World Wide Web Consortium." - Complex Table Mark-up (com tab) Toolbar
"This toolbar is an add-on to FireFox which can be used to reveal 'headers' and 'id' complex data table mark-up, create such mark-up either manually or automatically and create a linear version of the data table content." (Vision Australia) - CynthiaSays
An online accessibility evaluation tool that produces a detailed text report. - Distractability simulation
Experience the frustrations similar to what someone with a cognitive disability may experience on the web. - HERA
HERA is a utility for designers and developers who want to manually check the accesibility of their websites or to verify any Internet page. HERA aids with the revision of checkpoints from Web Content Accesibility Guidelines 1.0. - Low vision simulation
Web developers who are not visually impaired often have difficulty understanding the problems users with visual impairments face when accessing web pages that are not designed with their needs in mind. This simulation provides and opportunity for users to experience a web page as someone with a visual impairment might see it. - Lynx viewer
An online tool that simulates a text-only browser. - Robobraille
"RoboBraille automates the translation of text documents into Braille and speech. The service is available free of charge to all non-commercial users" - Screen reader simulation
This simulation will help you to understand what it is like for a person with visual impairments to access the Internet using a software program called a "screen reader". - Site check
Site check lets you enter a URL and access test results provided by important validators and accessibility tools. - The Wave
An online accessibility evaluation tool from WebAIM that produced a visual report. - Vischeck colour blindness simulator
Roughly 1 in 20 people have some sort of colour vision deficiency. The world looks different to these people: they often find it hard to tell red and green things apart. Vischeck is a way of showing you what things look like to someone who is colour blind. - Web Accessibility Toolbar
The Web Accessibility Toolbar has been developed to aid manual examination of web pages for a variety of aspects of accessibility. It runs as a plug-in to the Internet Explorer web browser.