About Accessibility

Archive for the ‘Opensource tools’ Category

The Web developer extension tool places a menu and a toolbar on your browser. This tool is a help assistant that provides a helping hand to increase the accessibility of the web sites or even to accelerate their knowledge. This toolbar deals with enabling – disabling styles, images and other such features that when used can change the look of the web site.

Download

A screen shot for downloading the Extension

Google Chrome – A new toolbar

Download the Toolbar here Web developer extension – CHROME

Firefox

Download the Toolbar here for Firefox Web developer Extension

Installation

A screen shot after downloading the extension

To complete the installation of the downloaded extension restart the browser.

The WAVE limitation of using Firefox as the default browser, no more exists. WAVE can now be accessed from anywhere in the world. To be accessible in the true sense and get a completely accessible document is now the simplest way to check for accessibility.

The WAVE tool can also be used through any web browser. Taking advantage of this tool through any browser does not even require a download.

Just follow the simple steps to your way towards accessibility.

1. Type / Navigate to the following URL: http://wave.webaim.org/
2. The following options are available:

• Enter a web site address –

Enter Site Address

1. If the user has a website that is ready this option can be used. You will have to enter the URL of the website.
2. This allows a user to enter in a URL to a public web page to be checked by WAVE.

• Upload a file –

Upload A File

1. All user desktop publishing documents can be checked for accessibility here.
2. This allows a user to upload files that are not publicly available for the internet.

• Copy/Paste HTML Code –
  

  HTML CODE

1. This allows a user to paste the HTML code of a web page to be checked by WAVE.
2. Simply copy the code from your Web Development Editor and paste it on the space provided.

However, this online tool cannot fully access the images, styles and any other media that has been used in the documents that user uploads. To check for full accessibility or for information read about the WAVE Toolbar.

The WAVE working wonders!

Wave Toolbar

About WAVE

Talking about the accessibility issues, WAVE is not the panacea but for sure it serves perfectly the range of experienced and laymen web developers to a good extent. This toolbar is a simple tool that extends a hand of help to create documents that are fully accessible for the people having even the slightest of difficulty in reading or recognizing text and images. It also supports groups of people having color blindness or any visual disorder.

Under the guidelines of section 508 compliance, the wave toolbar is used for evaluation of Web Pages. It is used for both – for checking the functional aspects of the web page and the order of the page. It provides a list of error checkers that in some way help deliver a better product.

This tool works with Mozilla Firefox and works as an add-on to it. It has a mechanism that works to provide reports generated directly within the Firefox browser. Thus, reducing the amount of work you would otherwise require copying the URL of your web page to the WAVE web site. It behaves as a secure method to check your web site against issues resulting due to inaccessible elements.

Download WAVE

The free wave toolbar can be downloaded and installed from Download WAVE Toolbar

Install WAVE

To install WAVE toolbar just check whether the pop-ups have been allowed. If they are not, then please select allow when the pop-up shows. This will automatically install the plug-in for Firefox. Once installed the WAVE toolbar will look similar to

WAVE Features

The WAVE toolbar has been divided as individual units for the preciseness of the results produced or rather has a focused area to ponder on. This includes the

The result of the Error, structure and features tab

The result of the Error, structure and features tab

Text Only Wave Toolbar

1. Errors, Features and Alerts – checks for any issues with the functionality.

2. Structure/Order – checks for the order of a web page to see the order in which it will be read.

3. Text-only – omits the style sheets to give only the text content of the web page.

4. Outline – provides all the headings in your web page. These have their individual contributions in making an accessible webpage.

The path to accessibility has to be achieved in bits and pieces for it is not yet a fully developed and researched area.