As you design, develop, or create digital content, use one or more methods to check accessibility.
Evaluation Guides & Checklists
Checklists and evaluation guides are one way to help ensure the accessibility of your digital content, and we have provided a list of some below.
Documents
- Word and PowerPoint Accessibility Checklist (WebAIM)
- Complete checklist to PDF accessibility (Adobe)
Web
- Accessibility Checklist (18F)
- ICT Testing Baseline for Web Accessibility (US Access Board)
- How to Meet WCAG Quick Reference (W3C)
- Web Accessibility Easy Checks (W3C)
- Quick Non-technical Accessibility Tests (University of Michigan)
- Evaluating Cognitive Web Accessibility (WebAIM)
- Quick Testing Quick Reference (WebAIM)
- Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2 Checklist (WebAIM)
- Web Accessibility Checklist (Deque)
- WCAG 2.1 Checklist (Elsevier)
- Accessibility Guidance Tool BETA (intopia)
- Accessibility Acceptance Criteria Tool (MagentaA11y)
Accessibility Checkers
Automated checkers are quick and easy to evaluate digital content for accessibility but can’t check for every potential accessibility issue. The list below contains different types of checkers.
Contrast
Use a contrast checker or tool to determine text legibility and visual contrast. The list below is a few commonly used ones.
- TPGi’s free Colour Contrast Analyzer (Windows/Mac)
- Contraste app (macOS)
- WebAIM’s Color Contrast Checker (Online)
- WebAIM’s Link Contrast Checker (Online)
Course Content
The Universal Design Online Content Inspection Tool or UDOIT (pronounced “You Do It”) enables faculty to inspect your course content for accessibility issues.
Learn how to enable UDOIT in the Canvas Navigation Menu and explore the UDOIT Cloud 3.0 User Guide to get started on how to use it.
Document
- Accessibility Checker in Microsoft Office
- Adobe Acrobat Pro DC Accessibility Checker
- PDF Accessibility Checker
Web
- Accessibility Insights (Microsoft)
- ANDI (Accessible Name & Description Inspector)
- axe DevTools (Deque)
- Photosensitive Epilepsy Analysis Tool
- WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool (WebAIM)
For a complete list of checkers, visit Web Accessibility Evaluation Tools.
Manual Testing
Assistive Technologies
Automated checkers are helpful, but they cannot verify all issues. Testing with assistive technology, such as screen readers, can help identify accessibility problems and usability issues. Learn more about Assistive Technology.
Desktop Screen Readers
Try screen reader keyboard commands and gestures used to read and navigate content with the following screen readers on the Windows and Mac operating systems:
- Job Access With Speech (JAWS) – a popular screen reader for Windows.
- NonVisual Desktop Access (NVDA) – an open-source screen reader for Windows.
- VoiceOver – Apple’s built-in screen reader with macOS and iOS.
For website evaluations using screen readers, try WebAIM’s in-depth tutorials:
- Evaluate Web Accessibility using JAWS
- Evaluate Web Accessibility using NVDA
- Evaluate Web Accessibility using VoiceOver
Mobile Screen Readers
VoiceOver (iOS)
TalkBack (Android)
Resources
- Accessibility Testing with the NVDA Screenreader (Deque video)
- How to set up & use NVDA to read a website for accessibility testing (Missouri AT video)
- NVDA Basics (Indiana University)
- Screen Reader Demo for Digital Accessibility (UCSF video)
- Screen Reader Basics: NVDA (Google video)