Accessibility Tools
No one person can determine if something is completely accessible just by looking at it. That's why the University Marketing Web Development team uses a number of tools, including web browser plugins, to measure accessibility, quality assurance, and other key indicators.
Screen readers
Screen readers are software programs that allow individuals with vision impairments (blindness, low-vision, color blindness, etc) to navigate their devices as well as the web through the use of voice or braille output. User typically navigate using keyboard shortcuts and commands, rather than a mouse. Some of the most common screen readers include:
VoiceOver
VoiceOver is a built-in screen reader for Apple devices (eg. iPhone, iPad, Macs, Apple Watch, etc). You can use Siri to enable VoiceOver by saying, "Turn on VoiceOver," or go to your device's system settings.
Microsoft Narrator
Narrator is the built-in screen-reader for Microsoft products. You can customize this product but installing "natural" voices to make listening easier. To start Narrator, pres sthe Windows logo key + CTL + Enter.
JAWS (Job Access with Speech)
JAWS is a very popular screen reader available to Windows users. There are both paid and free versions of this screen reader. Once installed, JAWS can typically be enabled by pressing CTL + the Windows key + Enter.
Review JAWS hotkeys (also known as keyboard shortcuts)
NVDA (NonVisual Desktop Access)
NVDA is an open-source platform available for Windows. NVDA's creators, who met as children at a camp for the blind, believe that everyone deserves access to computers. Once downloaded, the program can be started by pressing CTL + ALT + N.
Accessibility checkers/evaluators
How does your content stand up to the WCAG guidelines? Tools like the Adobe Accessibility Checker and Microsoft Accessibility Checker can check documents to determine how accessible they are, and tell you what changes you may need to make. Plugins like SiteImprove and WAVE do the same for webpage. These apps keep track of the guidelines so you don't have to - you just need to fix any errors they find.
Adobe Acrobat Pro
Although most PDFs can and should be converted into web content, there are exceptions to every rule, and occasionally a document needs to be hosted online or shared. To ensure accessibility, a remediator should be used on the document, until a tool is available for the university, you can use the Adobe Accessibility Checker to start the process. To start the checker, open your pdf, and click Check for accessibility in the left panel. From the Accessibility Checker Options dialog, select the options and then select Start checking.
Microsoft Accessibility Checker
Because accessibility is not only for websites, items like Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, Powerpoint presentations, and even emails should be checked to verify that your users are able to read and/or edit the content. The Microsoft Accessibility checker is available in many Microsoft products in Windows, Mac and iOS platforms, as well as web.
SiteImprove
SiteImprove is a software platform that helps improve web accessibility as well as SEO. Similar to SEO META in 1 click, it can be found on Google Chrome as a plugin that can be used to scan your webpage(s) to identify accessibility and SEO issues such as size requirements, code issues, improper structure heading and more.
WAVE Evaluation Tool
The WAVE evaluation tool is a comprehensive plugin that allows for testing directly within your browser. Once installed and enabled in your browser, it provides visual indicators directly onto your page, giving a clear idea of errors in contrast, structure, missing alt text and more.
SEO (Search engine optimization) and metadata information
SEO META in 1 Click
A free plugin on Google Chrome, SEO-META in 1 Click displays meta and SEO information clearly so that your page(s) can easily be found on the web. This plugin for your browser helps make sure you proper heading structure, that your images have alt text, and even ensures your links are all unique.
Apple/Mac
Apple devices have a number of accessibility tools and settings built into their devices. MacOS provides features categorized into a few areas:
- Vision: users can customize their on-screen motion as well as enlarge text and the pointer, and zoom in on the screen.
- Hearing: users can customize captions, make real-time text (RTT) calls and access live captions for audio.
- Motor: Apple users can navigate their device(s) in a variety of ways. In addition to a mouse or trackpad, users have the option of using spoken commands, keyboard navigation, and onscreen keyboards. Settings can be customized for certain gestures as well.
- Speech: Besides VoiceOver, users can have written content spoken out loud, and on certain devices, the voices can be customized.
Apple devices also have several developer tools (such as Accessibility Inspector and Accessibility Verifier) that are used to help debug apps during development.
Learn how to set up Assistive Access on your iPhone or iPad.