Checking website accessibility

The following instructions are for guidance only.  Reliable interpretation of website accessibility test results will require both technical expertise and experience gained from working in the area of accessible website design.

You can check the accessibility of a website by using free tools, online resources and your own web browser application.

For example, you could install the Internet Explorer Accessibility Toolbar in your browser.  The Toolbar is free for non-commercial use. 

Check the HTML

If the markup of a web page has errors in it the page may not work on all web browsers.  Therefore it is important to check how well it has been cloded.

Check the version of HTML being used on the page.  The ‘DOCTYPE’ will tell you which version of HTML the developer used to code the page (for example, HTML 4.1 Strict or XHTML 1 Transitional).  You can get this information in two ways:

• access the DOCTYPE via the accessibility toolbar (go to DocInfo then Show DOCTYPE)
• view the source code by clicking the ‘Source’ button in your accessibility toolbar.  Look at the first line of code.

Check the home page for any coding errors by running the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) code validator.  Select Validate, then W3C HTML Validator using your accessibility toolbar.  You can then get an idea of how many errors there are and a sense of their severity.

Check the Cascading Style Sheet (CSS)

On a website desinged to be flexible enough to meet the needs of different users, the content of the page will be separated from the way that it is presented.  It is the Cascading Style that determines how the page looks (to a sighted viewer) and the order in which the content is presented.  Select Validate, then W3C CSS Validator using your accessibility toolbar.

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