Test your website

Manual testing

You cannot rely solely on automatic testing tools. Therefore, you must also carry out a manual review of your website and its content, such as documents. For example, you should manually test language, clarity of hyperlink names and keyboard navigation.

Test your website manually on webbriktlinjer.se (in Swedish)

Automatic testing tools

You can quickly uncover a number of accessibility issues on your website by using automatic testing tools. Would you like a quick overview of how your website is performing, or check each point step by step? Remember, automatic tools can only test certain aspects.

• Testing individual webpages
• Testing whole websites 
• Testing particular accessibility issues
• Testing documents
• Testing colour and contrast

Testing individual webpages

WAVE (used by DIGG)

WAVE is an assessment tool that helps publishers make their web content more accessible for individuals with disabilities. WAVE can identify many accessibility and Web Content Accessibility Guideline (WCAG) errors, but also makes manual checking of web content easier.
To use the tool, type the web address (URL) into the box at the top of their homepage. WAVE Firefox and Chrome extensions are available for testing accessibility directly in your browser ‒ this is a practical way to check password-protected, locally stored or very dynamic webpages. 

WAVE ‒ Web Accessibility ‒ wave.webaim.org

axe DevTools

axe DevTools is a popular testing tool used by web developers and designers. It is a little more difficult to use in the beginning, but once you have it up and running, it is a powerful tool.

axe DevTools

Testing whole websites

Ace it Accessibility Evaluator

Ace it is a tool that helps you gain a general overview of your web interface’s accessibility performance.
The tool cannot check everything that is important, but it can be used to identify many common problems and gives a good indication of a website’s general accessibility.

Ace it Accessibility Evaluator

AccessMonitor

This is a tool created by the Portuguese government, taking the WCAG as its starting point. Note that it is possible to select English. You can choose to enter a web address (URL), paste in HTML code, or upload an HTML file.

AccessMonitor

Testing particular accessibility issues

Choose an accessibility issue that you feel is simple to remedy, for example ensuring that all headings are correctly formatted with H1, H2 and so on.
Review the entire website, page by page, and remedy the issue.
Next, choose a new problem and remedy it on every page of your website.

By focusing on one issue at a time, your accessibility work will feel more feasible and efficient. You will find that you can review quite a few webpages in one hour if you simply focus on one issue at a time.

Below are two tools that work well for testing one problem at a time:

Web Developer tool (used by DIGG)

The Web Developer plugin for use with your browser. Available for Chrome, Firefox and Opera.

Web Developer tool

Bookmarklets for Accessibility Testing

Bookmarklets for Accessibility Testing uses JavaScript to mark the roles, states and properties of accessibility elements on a page. They are available for screen readers and work in all browsers, including mobile phones.

Bookmarklets for Accessibility Testing

Testing documents

Word documents

Use the inbuilt checker in Word (choose Check Accessibility under the Review tab).

PDF documents

First turn to Acrobat Pro’s inbuilt accessibility checker (choose Accessibility under Tools). The Swedish Agency for Digital Government (DIGG) uses Acrobat Pro’s accessibility checker in its processes.

There are other tools that can be used to check PDF documents:

Analysys Mason’s free online tool ‒ pdf-kollen.se (in Swedish)

Test PDF files with WTKollen’s User Testing Tool ‒ wtkollen.se (available in English) 

Remember that automatic checks do not cover everything. Manually check things such as alternative texts, that the tags are correct and that headings, images etc. are in the right reading order. If the order is incorrect, this can be adjusted in Acrobat via “Touch up reading order”.

Testing colour and contrast

WebAIM: Color Contrast Checker - webaim.org

Colour Contrast Analyser – free program for measuring contrasts - developer.paciellogroup.com