Ask HN: Best way to test accessibility of a website? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Best way to test accessibility of a website?

#71

Post by shawnz » Mon, Mar 25, 2019, 12:48 PM UTC

austincheney wrote: post #69

shawnz wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you are understanding the parent correctly. They are saying a person with a partial visual impairment can still benefit from a well-designed visual page layout, because a person with partial visual impairment might still use vision in some ways. So well-designed CSS and images DO benefit those individuals. You seem to be implying that anyone with a visual impairment, even a partial one, would prefer to…

What does that have to do with accessibility? > You seem to be implying that anyone with a visual impairment, even a partial one I am not. Well written CSS, a subset of usability, is irrelevant to accessibility.

> Well written CSS, a subset of usability, is irrelevant to accessibility.

Says who?

https://www.w3.org/WAI/fundamentals/accessibility-usability-...

> There is a significant overlap between accessibility and usability. ISO 9241-11, defines usability as: The “extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals effectively, efficiently and with satisfaction in a specified context of use”. This could address accessibility when: “specified users” includes people with a range of disabilities, and “specified context of use” includes accessibility considerations such as assistive technologies.

Let me give an example: If I put icons on my buttons to improve the usability of my app, but the icons break at high zoom levels, then is that accessible? No, but you'd never know unless you do accessibility testing with CSS and images turned on.

Re: Ask HN: Best way to test accessibility of a website?

#72

Post by ahje » Mon, Mar 25, 2019, 12:52 PM UTC

dingus wrote: post #24

- Use blind accessibility tools with your website. If you're on iOS/macOS enable VoiceOver, figure out how it works, close your eyes and use your website. - Disable JavaScript and use your website. This may not be relevant for web apps, but regular websites should work normally. - Try to use your website with only the keyboard. - Try to use your website with extreme zoom levels and font size overrides. - Monitor your…

That's a nice checklist. I'd like to add "Test with a console browser" too. If the site is usable in Links2/Lynx/w3m then it will most likely work for everyone.

Re: Ask HN: Best way to test accessibility of a website?

#73

Post by Favic0n » Mon, Mar 25, 2019, 12:55 PM UTC

Check out http://www.sitespeed.io

Re: Ask HN: Best way to test accessibility of a website?

#74

Post by pbhjpbhj » Mon, Mar 25, 2019, 1:16 PM UTC

longnow wrote: post #27

You can use chrome dev tools. Right click the window and click 'inspect'. In the 'Audits' tab, you can run an audit for accessibility. It runs your website and checks it against common accessibility criteria, giving you a score out of 100. On a side note, running this page through the accessibility audit, gives a score of 33. Perhaps HN has some work to do on accessibility.

HN it's very obviously bad for accessibility, small click/touch targets, grey-on-grey text with v. low contrast in some situations (by design), poor indent-level visibility. Using 'shade of grey' to convey information is never going to be great.

Table-based layout can screw up screen-readers, I assume it's still 'tabulated but non-tabular'. Way back screen-readers used to assume the first tr contained th even if it wasn't marked up that way.

It would be interesting to hear from people who use assistive tech for HN how much of a problem it causes them in practice.

Re: Ask HN: Best way to test accessibility of a website?

#75

Post by IvarTJ » Mon, Mar 25, 2019, 1:17 PM UTC

throwaway857384 wrote: post #8

Pay me to do it... But in all seriousness, I use aXe-Coconut[1], headingsMaper[2]. Then tab through the page and make sure you can get from top left to bottom right. The cursor[focus state /ouline] should be visible the whole time and you should never lose your place. When you are done that, if you have a Mac turn on voiceover with Command+F5 and use Safari or Chrome (more aria-support). On Windows, download NVDA[3]…

Check the WCAG success criteria that your jurisdiction requires. One less obvious, and commonly required, criteria (WCAG 2.4.1[1]) is that the site has some mechanism by which a screen reader user can jump from the beginning of the document to the main content, without having to browse through the preceding navigational links and similar.

[1] https://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/navigation-mechan...

Re: Ask HN: Best way to test accessibility of a website?

#76

Post by walrus01 » Mon, Mar 25, 2019, 1:23 PM UTC

Try viewing it in lynx and navigating with keyboard commands only in lynx, to see how it will work for a screen reader tool.

Re: Ask HN: Best way to test accessibility of a website?

#77

Post by bramd » Mon, Mar 25, 2019, 1:29 PM UTC

throwaway857384 wrote: post #8

Pay me to do it... But in all seriousness, I use aXe-Coconut[1], headingsMaper[2]. Then tab through the page and make sure you can get from top left to bottom right. The cursor[focus state /ouline] should be visible the whole time and you should never lose your place. When you are done that, if you have a Mac turn on voiceover with Command+F5 and use Safari or Chrome (more aria-support). On Windows, download NVDA[3]…

+1 for this advice. Identifying the issues is just one part of the work, finding a correct and usable solution might be lots of work if you don't have much experience with accessibility.

I also do full-time accessibility work. Don't need extra work right now, but feel free to get in touch to discuss work in the (near) future.

Re: Ask HN: Best way to test accessibility of a website?

#78

Post by tmaxxcar » Mon, Mar 25, 2019, 1:40 PM UTC

I can think of only one tool that will test, score and identify accessibility issues, as well as track progression/regression over time. A testing tool provided by User1st. uTester

That said, automated testing can test anywhere from 30-40% of WCAG, leaving the rest to be found by a manual review. If you are not familiar with JAWS, NVDA, VoiceOver or TalkBack then a large portion of WCAG on your site(s) will go un-tested.

http://www.user1st.com/services/

Re: Ask HN: Best way to test accessibility of a website?

#79

Post by Jemm » Mon, Mar 25, 2019, 1:40 PM UTC

dingus wrote: post #24

- Use blind accessibility tools with your website. If you're on iOS/macOS enable VoiceOver, figure out how it works, close your eyes and use your website. - Disable JavaScript and use your website. This may not be relevant for web apps, but regular websites should work normally. - Try to use your website with only the keyboard. - Try to use your website with extreme zoom levels and font size overrides. - Monitor your…

Many sites break at moderate zoom levels.

Re: Ask HN: Best way to test accessibility of a website?

#80

Post by tmaxxcar » Mon, Mar 25, 2019, 1:41 PM UTC

IvarTJ wrote: post #75

throwaway857384 wrote: post #8

Pay me to do it... But in all seriousness, I use aXe-Coconut[1], headingsMaper[2]. Then tab through the page and make sure you can get from top left to bottom right. The cursor[focus state /ouline] should be visible the whole time and you should never lose your place. When you are done that, if you have a Mac turn on voiceover with Command+F5 and use Safari or Chrome (more aria-support). On Windows, download NVDA[3]…

Check the WCAG success criteria that your jurisdiction requires. One less obvious, and commonly required, criteria (WCAG 2.4.1[1]) is that the site has some mechanism by which a screen reader user can jump from the beginning of the document to the main content, without having to browse through the preceding navigational links and similar. [1] https://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/navigation-mechan...

Skip-links should also be accessible for keyboard users.