508 Compliance Testing Tools Free

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On this page, we are going to give you the 508 compliance testing tools for free that you will need to be 508 compliant. You will be able to use these free 508 compliance testing tools when you are building a website. You will also be able to use these free 508 compliance checker tools if you already have an existing website. So no matter what your section 508 compliance needs are, you should be able to find a free 508 compliance testing tool here. As a company, we believe that this is where we want to give back to the community. If all companies and people gave back just 5% of either their time or their money to causes that they feel passionate about then we would be living in a potentially much better world.

 


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We are WordPress developers here at St. Pete Design and one of our passions is creating great sites for people who are impaired in some way. Our company specializes in the visually impaired section of the overall population. We believe that the 100’s of millions of people who are in some way visually impaired should have the same user experience that everyone else does. We have built WordPress websites that meet or exceed the ADA Section 508 Compliance regulations. As WordPress developers, we have also created custom ADA Section 508 Compliance WordPress plugins for local government agencies.

508 Compliance Testing Tools Free For Everyone!

  1. Contrastchecker.com – This tells you whether your page has the proper contrast ratio
  2. Chrome Extension: Accessibility Developer Tools – This is a collection of great accessibility tools created by Google specifically for developers.
  3. Capybara accessible – Capybara-accessible defines a Selenium-based web driver that acts as a drop-in replacement for Selenium or Webkit in your Capybara integration tests. Every time the driver visits a page,  it automatically runs assertions from the Google Accessibility Developer Tools javascript library and raises exceptions with detailed error messages.
  4. Tenon.io – Tenon exists to provide reliable and accurate automated accessibility testing coverage for a wide array of accessibility best practices. Some accessibility best practices are either too subjective or too complex to be accurately tested with automated means. Doing so increases the risk of so-called “false positives”, which can reduce the usefulness of a testing tool.
  5. Accesslint.com – AccessLint is super easy to install, and there’s no setup. Pick which projects you want to be reviewed, and AccessLint kicks into action. The next time you open a pull request, AccessLint reviews it for issues and adds comments to the code.
  6. HTML Accessibility API Mapping (AAM) – HTML Accessibility API Mappings (HTML-AAM) defines how users  map HTML 5.1 elements and attributes to platform accessibility (APIs).
  7. Tota11y – tota11y will help you see how your site performs with accessible technologies. (My favorite)

Our experiences with 508 compliance testing tools

While creating section 508 compliant WordPress software and WordPress websites we have learned a few things. We have used a lot of different section 508 compliance testing tools. Some of them we paid for and some we used for free. On this page, we have included the section 508 compliance testing tools free for everyone to use. We implore all developers to take a look at this list. We know that you cannot change your process completely and we do not expect you to. As developers, if we just change a few things about our processes we usually find that it doesn’t take much more time than it did before. As we continue to build websites this would add up to a much better user experience for people who are visually impaired.

Let our mistakes be lessons to other developers or companies who are trying to become section 508 compliant. We have made mistakes by using large and cumbersome types of software trying to become 508 compliant. We have also made mistakes by purchasing some of the paid section 508 compliant plugins and other types of software.  Some of them worked well but later on, we found essentially the same 508 compliance testing plugins for free. We have also made mistakes by not understanding how easy it is to create a section 508 compliant WordPress website if we follow a few rules from the very beginning. This way as we build the site we are just making sure that everything meets or exceeds section 508 compliance laws.

508 compliance testing tools

Here is a list of guidelines to make sure your website is section 508 compliant. If you understand and implement these guidelines from the beginning of your project. The software or website that you are building will naturally be 508 compliant at the end of your project. So we hope that this can help guide you through the process.

The Guidelines for Section 508 Compliance:

Perceivable:

  1. Provide text alternatives for non-text content (Alt Text for Pics)
  2. Provide caption and other alternatives for multimedia (Video Transcripts)
  3. Create content that can be presented in different ways, including by assistive technologies, without losing meaning (HTML tags to identify reading sequence)
  4. Make it easier for users to see and hear content (Use of color, contrast ratios, text links must make sense when read out of context)

Operable:

  1. Make all functionality available on the keyboard (HTML tags, correct tab order)
  2. Give users enough time to read and use content ( Minimize timing of content, give users control)
  3. Do not use content that causes seizures (No scrolling text, ability to pause or control speed of rotating banner ads)
  4. Help users navigate and find content (Sitemap accessible from every page)

Understandable:

  1. Make text readable and understandable (Minimize jargon and acronyms, adjustable text size)
  2. Make content appear and operate in predictable ways (Consistent navigation)
  3. Help users avoid and correct mistakes (From form field labels, user-friendly error messages, confirmation of form submissions)

Robust:

  1. Maximize compatibility with current and future user tools (Proper coding, standard HTML)

 

508 Compliance Testing Tools Free for Everyone!

We hope that at least something on this page will help you make your site more accessible to the visually impaired. If you have any questions about 508 compliance testing tools free for everyone then just head over to our contact us page and drop us a message. You can also check out more section 508 compliance information on our Section 508 compliant page. As WordPress developers, if we all give back just 5% then together we can make a better world for everyone. Thank you for taking the time to read this post. Good luck!

 

 

 

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