Where do I begin?

• Try it yourself: If you prefer to explore things on your own, you can use the tools on this page to begin analyzing your Web pages. See the How do I analyze my pages? area below. You will use several tools to generate reports about your pages. I recommend that you use all the tools in the Analysis Tools links on the left. Each tool's function will be briefly explained below, and you can find a more in-depth explanation at each tool's site. A checklist of accessibility items is provided below to help you get organized and analyze your pages. Notice: All links below will open in a new window. The Other Tools section has links to more advanced tools and resources for analyzing and removing accessibility barriers from Web pages.

• You may schedule an appointment with the Web Page Accessibility Office if you would like to sit down one-on-one to analyze your site. See the Contact Us link on the left navigation bar.

• Attend Workshops: There are workshops offered at the Center for Excellence in Teaching. Read about the accessibility workshops.

How do I analyze my pages?

1. Print out the Accessibility Checklist below, and focus on Priority 1 items only for now
2. Test your site with Lynx, and learn how to interpret the results
3. Test your site with Bobby and/or Wave, and learn how to interpret the results
4. Test your site for colors
5. Listen to your site with Jaws (You can do this in our office). You can print out the Keystroke sheet to learn how to navigate a Web page without a mouse using Jaws. Jaws Keystroke Help
6. Use the How To section of this site to learn accessibility techniques

Optional:

The Other Tools links are strictly optional. There, you will find a plug-in for Dreamweaver, which will help you make your pages accessible. You will also find accessibility information Adobe products such as Adobe Acrobat PDF and Page Maker.

Analysis Tools

Web Accessibility Checklist

This checklist will help you organize your thoughts and tasks when you begin to analyze accessibility barriers on your pages. The items on this checklist are explained in more detail in the How To section of this Web site. The How To section will provide you with techniques for fixing accessibility barriers.

View and Print the Web Accessibility Checklist

Lynx Viewer:

Lynx is a text-only Web browser. It is an excellent place to start when you begin analyzing a particular Web page. What Lynx will do is show you where alternative text is lacking. Wherever you see the word [Link], alt text needs to be added to an image. Another thing you will notice is the flow of the text. If the page can be read in a natural manner as Lynx displays it, you can be reasonably sure that Jaws will speak the page in much the same way. Go to the following Web site and type or paste your Web site address in the text field.

Lynx Viewer

Bobby:

Bobby was one of the first accessibility analysis tools to be available. It produces a report based on three priority levels. The report can appear overwhelming at first, but just take it one piece at a time. There is a help section that will help you understand how to use Bobby. Go to the following Web site and type or paste your Web site address in the text field.

Bobby Site

Wave:

Wave is very similar to Bobby, except it is more visual. The report is much easier to read than the Bobby report, but they use a lot of icons. The icons are expained on the site under a help menu. Go to the following Web site and type or paste your Web site address in the text field.

Wave Site

Color:

You can view your site as a colorblind person might view it. Go to the following Web site and type or paste your Web site address in the text field.

Visicheck Site

Other Tools

Accessible Table Builder:

If you are using tables to display data on a Web site, you will need to add specific HTML code to the table to allow Jaws to speak the table properly. The Table Builder will generate the code for you. You then copy and paste the code in your page and fill it in with the information you want to display. This site has tutorials and other resources to help you understand what makes a table inaccessible.

Accessible Table Builder

Accessible Form Element Generator:

If you are using forms on your site, you will need to structure the form elements in a particular way. This site will produce all the HTML code for the form elements. This site has tutorials and other resources to help you understand what makes a form inaccessible.

Accessible Form Element Generator

Jaws Screen Reader:

You can download Jaws on your computer (PC only) to listen to your Web sites. The software is fully functional, but will time-out after 40 minutes. Each time you reboot your computer, you can use Jaws for an additional 40 minutes. Go to the Web site below to download Jaws. There are instructions on this Web site, too. The instructions are in both Word document and audio format.

If you are interested in checking your page with Jaws or just seeing how it works on the Web, we have also provided a Jaws Keystroke help page. This is provided to give you some of the basic keystrokes to navigate pages on the Web.

Additionally, you can listen to someone tell you how to use Jaws. The maker of Jaws, Freedom Scientific, provides an audio file that will walk you through the basics of using the program. You will need RealOne Player to hear the audio presentation. Download RealOne Player here. You can listen to the Jaws instructions here.

Jaws Screen Reading Software

A-Prompt:

A-Prompt (Accessibility Prompt) is a software tool designed to improve the usability of HTML documents by evaluating Web pages for accessibility barriers and then providing developers with a fast and easy way to make the necessary repairs.

A-Prompt Software

Tablin - HTML Table Linearizer Entry Form

Tables can be used for two purposes on the Web: general page layout and to display data. If a table is used for layout with multiple columns for text. This tool will linearize information from tables and display it in a logical, linear format. Find a site that uses a lot of tables for layout (almost any site), and plug the url into the tablin entry form. It will take the content of each column and lay it out in a linear format. If the table is used for data cells where you compare figures to the column headers and row headers, you will need to code your pages using techniques for data tables.

Tablin - HTML Table Linearizer

Macromedia Accessibility (Makers of Dreamweaver)

Dreamweaver is an excellent Web page editor that will help you create accessible Web pages. There are tutorials and a free accessibility extension (plug-in) on their site.

Macromedia's Accessibility Site

Adobe Acrobat (pdf) Accessibility

Creating accessible PDF documents starts before the document is ever begun. When you create the document in a word processor (such as Word 2000), you must use certain conventions such as headers and paragraph elements. This site will explain in more detail about the process of making documents accessible to assistive technology devices. We have also linked to some Quick Time movies on Adobe's Web site which do an excellent job of explaining PDF accessibility. If you don't have Quick Time installed on your machine, download the Quick Time player.

Information on Adobe Acrobat Accessibility

Adobe Acrobat's Accessibility Movies:

Working with Microsoft Office 2000 files
Working with existing PDF files
Working with forms
Usability enhancements of Acrobat 5.0
Working with screen readers

Adobe PageMaker Accessibility

Creating accessible PageMaker documents starts before the document is ever begun. Making Adobe PageMaker documents accessible is similar to making Acrobat documents accessible. The link below will show you a table with accessibility features of that PageMaker supports. The table is quite complex and technical. We will post more information as soon as it becomes available.

Information on Adobe PageMaker

HTML Validator

This service is offered by the W3C, but there are other validation services available. HTML validation allows you check your HTML syntax for errors. If you don't know anything about HTML, you probably won't be using this.

Validate Your HTML

CSS Validator

This service is offered by the W3C, but there are other validation services available. CSS validation allows you check your CSS syntax for errors. If you don't know anything about CSS, you probably won't be using this.

Validate Your CSS

Link Checker

This service is offered by the W3C, but there are other validation services available. Link Checker allows you check your pages for broken links.

Validate Your CSS

Tidy HTML

Tidy is a tool that will actually fix some parts of your HTML code. It doesn't validate the code, but actually repairs it. At least that is what they say. It seems to work fairly well, but they don't guarantee it will do exactly as you desire.

Fix Pages with Tidy HTML

Ask Alice

You can "ask Alice" to look for accessibility barriers in your site. It is similar to Bobby and Wave, except you have to fill out a form. After you submit the form and the URL for your site, you will receive a report via email.

Ask Alice to Evaluate Your Pages

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