Content Recap
Congratulations! You have reached the end.
The goal of Professional Web Accessibility Auditing Made Easy has been to build your knowledge and develop your skills so you will be able to:
- Audit the accessibility of websites
- Report issues and make informed recommendations
- Understand thoroughly the aspects of web accessibility
Unit 1: Aspects of Web Accessibility Auditing
Unit 1 provided an overview of the many aspects of web accessibility auditing, creating a foundation that the rest of the materials here are built upon. You started assembling your Web Accessibility Auditing Toolkit, which would grow into a collection of tools, references, and resources to support your accessibility auditing activities.
Unit 2: Introduction to WCAG 2.0
Unit 2 introduced you to the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0). First the four principles were introduced, which state that web content must be: Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust. You were also introduced to conformance levels and success criteria: Level A are criteria that must be addressed or barriers will be created; Level AA are criteria that should be addressed or content will be difficult to use for some; and Level AAA are criteria that could be addressed to improve usability further. With that in mind, the 10 Key Guidelines were introduced to familiarize you with the more common accessibility issues found in web content.
Unit 3: Automated Testing Tools
Unit 3 covered a variety of automated tools that support web auditing activities. First, the AChecker and WAVE accessibility checkers were compared, and a variety of other similar tools were introduced for you to explore. You were also introduced to tools for evaluating colour contrast, for validating HTML markup, and for determining the reading level that visitors to a website would need to effectively understand the content.
Unit 4: Manual Testing Strategies
Unit 4 introduced a number of manual test strategies that complement automated tests, and assistive technology reviews. You were introduced to the Tab Navigation and the Select All tests, useful for quickly identifying keyboard accessibility issues and other potential barriers. Tools such as Developer Tools were introduced as a means of examining HTML markup to help identify specific issues in the code of a website.
Unit 5: Assistive Technology Testing
Unit 5 looked at Assistive Technologies (AT), focusing on getting set up with ChromeVox as a tool for doing day-to-day screen reader testing. You also learned about other popular screen readers like JAWS, NVDA, and VoiceOver, as well as other types of AT such as magnification programs, voice recognition, and alternative input devices.
Unit 6: User Testing
Unit 6 showed us aspects of web accessibility that go beyond the typical web accessibility audit, addressing considerations associated with user testing. User testing can provide valuable information about the usability of web content, though there are a number of considerations that must be addressed when selecting user testers (such as experience with web content and level of assistive technology expertise) to ensure results are meaningful. Strategies were also introduced for developing user testing protocols, and observing and recording testers’ behaviours during user testing sessions.
Unit 7: Web Accessibility Audit Reporting
Unit 7 explored the next step in the auditing process after testing: accessibility reporting. Different types of audit reports were covered, including Informal, Template, General, and Detailed reports, each of which serve different purposes depending on the needs of the organization and the type of web content being reviewed. You took a tour of the Canvas 2012 General Review, which introduced the elements of an accessibility audit report.
Unit 8: Other Accessibility Standards
Unit 8 built on what you learned about accessibility guidelines in Unit 2, introducing international standards and regulations based on WCAG 2.0. You were also introduced to other types of accessibility standards for authoring tools (ATAG 2.0), user agents such as browsers and assistive technologies (UAAG 2.0), and WAI-ARIA, which provides tools developers can use to create accessible custom web interactions.
