Comments on: The Inaccessibility of Automated Accessibility Tools http://universallydesigned.net/standards/the-inaccessibility-of-accessibility-toolbars/ Knowbility blogs about technology that everyone can use. Fri, 19 Feb 2010 07:49:10 -0600 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.3 hourly 1 By: Karl Groves http://universallydesigned.net/standards/the-inaccessibility-of-accessibility-toolbars/comment-page-1/#comment-1113 Karl Groves Wed, 06 Jan 2010 17:05:16 +0000 http://universallydesigned.net/?p=156#comment-1113 Desiree, First, thanks for mentioning AMP Express in your post! Accessibility testing tools abound these days, especially for testing websites. Much can be done to provide an assessment of a website for accessibility using automated means and most of the tools out there will provide the same level of quality with respect to their results because, frankly, they (we?) all test for the same things using much the same methods. Unfortunately, automated testing - regardless of the tool - can only get you about 20% of the data necessary for one to make an informed decision of how accessible your cite is. The rest of the process is manual. There are numerous ways to test using non-automated means, ranging from manual code inspection to manipulation of browser settings, manipulation of hardware settings, use of assistive technologies, or simple things like using a keyboard only to navigate. Additionally, an audit is not complete without performing use case testing with actual users of assistive technologies completing typical system tasks. Clearly, toolbars fit squarely in with the manual inspection process. Many of the toolbars out there will provide you with good results specific to the things they can test for, be it the WAVE toolbar, the Firefox Accessibility toolbar, or something else. Regarding your question about these toolbars' level of accessibility, I have no specific knowledge of them though given their context-of-use I'd be shocked if they weren't themselves accessible. Here at SSB BART Group, we include the InFocus Toolbar for IE with all licenses of our Accessibility Management Platform (Better known as AMP: http://amp.ssbbartgroup.com). The InFocus Toolbar is meant as a complimentary tool to help the web accessibility auditing process be more efficient for users of AMP and can do loads of things all the other toolbars can do, such as turning on & off stylesheets, turning on & off JavaScript, grayscale previews, text-only view, view header info, and so on. Additionally, it performs screen captures and captures of the live DOM (including session-based capture) to assist in your auditing. SSB BART Group has more than 8 blind or low-vision client services employees who use the InFocus Toolbar on a daily basis, so we know it is accessible too! Hope this helps. Desiree,

First, thanks for mentioning AMP Express in your post!

Accessibility testing tools abound these days, especially for testing websites. Much can be done to provide an assessment of a website for accessibility using automated means and most of the tools out there will provide the same level of quality with respect to their results because, frankly, they (we?) all test for the same things using much the same methods. Unfortunately, automated testing – regardless of the tool – can only get you about 20% of the data necessary for one to make an informed decision of how accessible your cite is. The rest of the process is manual.

There are numerous ways to test using non-automated means, ranging from manual code inspection to manipulation of browser settings, manipulation of hardware settings, use of assistive technologies, or simple things like using a keyboard only to navigate. Additionally, an audit is not complete without performing use case testing with actual users of assistive technologies completing typical system tasks.

Clearly, toolbars fit squarely in with the manual inspection process. Many of the toolbars out there will provide you with good results specific to the things they can test for, be it the WAVE toolbar, the Firefox Accessibility toolbar, or something else. Regarding your question about these toolbars’ level of accessibility, I have no specific knowledge of them though given their context-of-use I’d be shocked if they weren’t themselves accessible.

Here at SSB BART Group, we include the InFocus Toolbar for IE with all licenses of our Accessibility Management Platform (Better known as AMP: http://amp.ssbbartgroup.com). The InFocus Toolbar is meant as a complimentary tool to help the web accessibility auditing process be more efficient for users of AMP and can do loads of things all the other toolbars can do, such as turning on & off stylesheets, turning on & off JavaScript, grayscale previews, text-only view, view header info, and so on. Additionally, it performs screen captures and captures of the live DOM (including session-based capture) to assist in your auditing.

SSB BART Group has more than 8 blind or low-vision client services employees who use the InFocus Toolbar on a daily basis, so we know it is accessible too!

Hope this helps.

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