Accessibility Testing Tools
This is a collection of useful tools for accessibility testing and debugging. The earlier in the process you start using these, the better.
See also the accessibility section of my frontend-dev-bookmarks which contains many more resources.
Mac
- Accessibility Inspector for Mac: https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Accessibility/Conceptual/AccessibilityMacOSX/OSXAXTestingApps.html
- VoiceOver for Mac: http://www.apple.com/accessibility/osx/voiceover/
Windows
- The Accessibility Viewer (aViewer) for Windows: http://www.paciellogroup.com/resources/aviewer/
- NVDA for Windows: http://www.nvaccess.org/download/
- JAWS for Windows: http://www.freedomscientific.com/Downloads/JAWS
- Up and Running with JAWS: https://joe-watkins.io/accessibility/up-and-running-with-jaws-on-a-mac/
CSS Diagnostics
- Diagnostic.css: http://www.karlgroves.com/2013/09/07/diagnostic-css-super-quick-web-accessibility-testing/
- debugCSS: http://yahoo.github.io/debugCSS/
- AcceCSS Sass mixin: http://lukyvj.github.io/accecss/
Browser extensions (Chrome)
- The Accessibility DevTools extension for Chrome: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/accessibility-developer-t/fpkknkljclfencbdbgkenhalefipecmb
- WAVE Evaluation Tool for Chrome: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/wave-evaluation-tool/jbbplnpkjmmeebjpijfedlgcdilocofh
- ChromeVox for Chrome: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chromevox/kgejglhpjiefppelpmljglcjbhoiplfn
- aXe for Chrome: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/axe/lhdoppojpmngadmnindnejefpokejbdd
- Color Contrast Analyzer for Chrome: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/color-contrast-analyzer/dagdlcijhfbmgkjokkjicnnfimlebcll/related
- Siteimprove Accessibility Checker for Chrome: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/siteimprove-accessibility/efcfolpjihicnikpmhnmphjhhpiclljc/
- TRAY Readability tool: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tray-readability-tool/eccbjfaplogblgjpopbihpgfgmlgjamf
- Funkify - disability simulator: http://www.funkify.org/
Browser extensions (Firefox)
- Accessibility Evaluation Toolbar for Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/accessibility-evaluation-toolb/
- DOM Inspector for Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/dom-inspector-6622/
- Juicy Studio Accessibility Toolbar for Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/juicy-studio-accessibility-too/
- WAVE Accessibility Extension for Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/wave-accessibility-tool/
See the full accessibility tree in Chrome
You can view a dump of the accessibility tree in Chrome by typing chrome://accessibility/ in the address bar.
Online tools
- Tenon: https://tenon.io/
- HTML_CodeSniffer: http://www.squizlabs.com/general/html-codesniffer
- AccessLint: http://www.accesslint.com/
Color Contrast Checkers
- Contrast Ratio: http://leaverou.github.io/contrast-ratio/
- Color Contrast Checker: http://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/
- Color Safe: http://colorsafe.co/
Automated Accessibility Testing
- aXe, accessibility engine for automated Web UI testing: https://github.com/dequelabs/axe-core
- tota11y, an accessibility visualization toolkit: http://khan.github.io/tota11y/
- Pa11y: http://pa11y.org/
- accessibilityjs - accessibility error scanner: https://github.com/github/accessibilityjs
Bookmarklets
- The Visual ARIA Bookmarklet: http://whatsock.com/training/matrices/visual-aria.htm
- Revenge.css: http://heydonworks.com/revenge_css_bookmarklet/
- Bookmarklets for Accessibility Testing: http://pauljadam.com/bookmarklets/
- a11y.css: http://ffoodd.github.io/a11y.css/
Miscellaneous links
- Accessibility Testing Tools: http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/2014/10/accessibility-testing-tools-updated/
- Screen Reader User Survey 6 Results: http://webaim.org/projects/screenreadersurvey6/
- Web Accessibility Evaluation Tools List (by W3C): https://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/tools/
- Easy Checks - A First Review of Web Accessibility: https://www.w3.org/WAI/eval/preliminary