ACCESSIBILITY CODE INSPECTION
Make sure that you have a copy of the U.S. Federal Guidelines, known as
Section 508, handy when you reach this step. Note: you aren’t required to use
U.S. Federal guidelines, it’s just that an explanation for each guideline and how
to check for it, is necessary, so you could use other accessibility guidelines if
they are very similar. Note that a code inspection doesn’t mean that you must go
through a web page and read every single line of code. Often, the best way to do
a code inspection is to identify the relevant HTML tag, and then use the “find”
feature to find where in the code there is an instance of that tag. I repeat: don’t
read through the entire code. Use the find feature to find the HTML tags that
are relevant to the specific accessibility violation that you are investigating. Here
is a list of the current regulations for web sites from Section 508, and a commonsense description of how to check for violations. Often, when you hear things that
just “don’t sound right,” you can identify the actual cause of the problem during
the code inspection, using your experience from previous steps.
Regulation
from Section
508, 1194.22
Paragraph AAlt text
Paragraph BMultimedia
Paragraph CColor
Common-sense description for how to determine if
there is a violation
- Follow up and check on any misleading or missing alt
text from steps 1 and 2
- Do searches on all tags and make sure that you
have alt text (unless the is for something without
any content, like spacing)
Does the page have any audio or video? If so, make sure
that there is captioning for video with a soundtrack, textual
descriptions for video without a soundtrack, and a
transcripts for audio
Are there any parts of the web page where a change in
text color signifies something (for instance, form fields that
are required), aside from the fact that text is a hyperlink?
Would the page cause problems if you were viewing it in
black and white? Is there enough color contrast between
text and background (use a tool like http://colorfilter.wickline.org/) if
you can’t easily determine
Paragraph DStyle Sheets
People with disabilities often apply their own cascading
style sheet (CSS) to a web page. See what the web page
looks like when the CSS is disabled. It’s easy to change
the web browser settings to disable style sheets. Make
sure that the content still makes sense. It doesn’t have to
be the same or look perfect, it just must be readable.
Paragraph E
and F-Server
Side Image
Maps
Paragraph G
and H-Tables
Paragraph IFrames
Paragraph Jblinking and
flashing
Paragraph KText-only
page
Does the page have clickable image maps (where you
click on a different portion of a graphic to either access a
different link or to access content?) If there are no
clickable image maps, move on to the next guideline. If
there are clickable image maps, see if there is a way to
access the content (or the links) using only the keyboard.
If so, it’s accessible. If not, it’s a problem.
Look at the web page. Do you see any data tables? Do a
keyword search for the HTML tag. If tables are
used, but only for presenting layout, move on to the next
paragraph. If there are tables used for presenting data,
make sure that there is a lot of markup, using techniques
such as the for a labeling each column in the top
row of the table, a summary using the
attribute, to give the table a title, and the
attribute to describe the location of each cell
in the table. Accessible tables are a complex topic. When
in doubt, listen to the table using a screen reader and see
if it makes any sense. For more information on accessible
tables, go to: http://jimthatcher.com/webcourse9.htm
Do a keyword search and see if there are any or
tags in the code. If there are no frames, move
onto the next paragraph. If there are frames, determine if
the tags have meaningful titles. TITLE=”left, top,
or bottom” would be meaningless and inaccessible.
Title=”maincontent, navigation, or search” would be
useful. And make sure that there are tags if
you use frames.
Look at the web page. Does the web page have any
flashing or blinking text or images? Is there scrolling text
or anything which might make someone dizzy or have an
epileptic seizure? If there is anything blinking or flashing
which potentially could be a problem, you can use a tool
like http://tools.webaccessibile.org/test/check.aspx to
check it.
This paragraph allows that, if you cannot make the web
page accessible, that you can have a link to a text-only
page, and that will then qualify as accessible. If there’s a
link to a text-only page, as long as the content is up-todate, that’s considered to be accessible, but it’s pretty rare
nowadays that organizations do that, as it’s not
encouraged. So this paragraph is rarely “violated.”
Paragraph LScripting
Languages
Paragraph MApplets and
plug-ins
Paragraph NForms
Paragraph OSkip
This is the most challenging paragraph to evaluate.
Scripting comes in many different forms, including
JavaScript, Ajax, and Active X. To do a thorough complete
review, you need to be familiar with any scripting
languages used. For instance, you could do a keyword
search for , and see if there are equivalent
event handlers for keyboard use. That means, for
example, for every mouse-related Javascript event
handler (such as onMouseOver), you need to have an
equivalent keyboard event handler (such as onFocus).
Note that this would probably not identify every single
usage of scripting, and furthermore, you should only be
interested in scripting that relates to actual content. A
purely decorative mouseover, where an object changes
color when you roll the mouse over it, but there is no
actual content provided by the event handler, is not an
accessibility problem. You should be concerned by event
handlers that provide content (for instance, rolling over a
section of seats in a map of the symphony hall, and the
price of those seats appears), not decorative ones.
Another way to approach this is to look through the web
page visually, looking for any portions of the web page
where either 1) content is automatically being updated
and changing, or 2) where the content being displayed
changes based on user actions (such as moving the
mouse over an object). Once you identify those areas,
then you should attempt to access the same content using
your screen reader, and only using your keyboard , and
see if you can access the same content.
If the page provides any content using either an applet or
a plug-in (such as Adobe Acrobat, MS-Word or MSExcel), is the plug-in accessible, and does the page
include a link to download the plug-in? Often, having a
link, on the page, to an accessible version of the plug-in is
what is forgotten
Do a keyword search in the code on and then
determine if all of the form labels make sense. Are they
called “form1, form2, form3” or something meaningless, or
are they called names such as “first name, last name,
mobile phone number, etc.”
When you listened to the top of the web page, is there a
link called something like “skip to main content” or “skip
Navigation
Paragraph PTimed
response
navigation” so that users can follow that link and start at
the main content of the page, rather than having to listen
to all of the navigation first? Technically, this is easy, but
many site designers forget about this.
Are there any tasks on the page with a time limit? Any
user actions with a limited amount of time? This often
occurs with a login or entry of sensitive or security-related
data. If there are any tasks with a time limit, make sure
that the user has the option to request more time
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