For those of you who need to test for accessibility on a budget, this presentation will come in handy. It covers tools and affordable techniques for small and medium-sized businesses.

1. Accessibility testing
for everyone
Techniques for all business sizes
Claudio Luis Vera
Accessibility Expert at Royal Caribbean Cruises, Ltd.

2. Hats that I’ve worn
I work as a accessibility
professional after a
25-year career in UX
design and
development.
Front-
end
developer
Creative
Director
UX
Designer
Aging
human
Management
Certified A11y
professional
Caregiver
C L A U D I O L U I S V E R A , R O Y A L C A R I B B E A N

3. Which of these
personas is the one to
design for?

4. The independent one.

5. WCAG 2.1:
The de facto standard for
web accessibility, made up of a set
of hundreds of guidelines.

6. C L A U D I O L U I S V E R A , R O Y A L C A R I B B E A N
WCAG levels
A
Obsolescent standard
that doesn’t meet legal
requirements
AA
Nearly-universal standard
AAA
Advanced requirement
where near-perfect
accessibility is imperative

7. What’s a screen
reader?
Screen readers are software programs
that allow blind or visually impaired
users to read the text that is displayed
on the computer screen with a speech
synthesizer or braille display.
-American Federation for the Blind
NVDA
JAWS
Mac
Voiceover

8. 8C L A U D I O L U I S V E R A , R O Y A L C A R I B B E A N
main
Skipto
main
Skipto
main
main

9. C L A U D I O L U I S V E R A , R O Y A L C A R I B B E A N
Top accessibility mistakes
● Missing alt tags or alt text
● Missing form field labels
● Insufficient color contrast
● Broken tab index
● Hidden focus
● Using styles instead of headings
● Using buttons where links should go
● Missing “Skip navigation” link
● Social toolbars that don’t skip links

10. Design
Reviews
1

11. C L A U D I O L U I S V E R A , R O Y A L C A R I B B E A N
Contrast ratios
3 : 1
Requirement for
WCAG AA 2.x for
large-scale text
(over 18 pt)
4.5 : 1
Requirement for
WCAG AA 2.x for
text (14 -18 pt)
7 : 1
Requirement for
WCAG AAA for any
size text

12. C L A U D I O L U I S V E R A , R O Y A L C A R I B B E A N
Sample of a color palette built around color contrast.
An accessible color palette

13. 2
Test-as-you-go
• WAVE and other
browser plugins
• aXe code
inspector
• Google Developer
Tools

14. Demo time!

15. DIY Testing
techniques
3

16. C L A U D I O L U I S V E R A , R O Y A L C A R I B B E A N
DIY Testing techniques
● Unplug your mouse and cover your
trackpad
● Tab through your menus, forms
● Can you access every menu and
control?
● Can you operate every menu and
control?
● Can you see where the focus is at all
times?

17. C L A U D I O L U I S V E R A , R O Y A L C A R I B B E A N
DIY Testing techniques
● Magnify the page to 200%
(this is required for WCAG AA)
● Magnify the page to 500%
Can you read all the text:
● Are there overlaps?
● Hidden text areas?
● Collisions?
Do you have to scroll horizontally?

18. C L A U D I O L U I S V E R A , R O Y A L C A R I B B E A N
Other DIY Techniques
Using WAVE:
● Turn off images
● Turn off CSS
Turn on high-contrast mode
Also, be sure to:
● Click on field labels
● Check for captions and transcripts

19. Automated
testing
(SaaS)
4

20. Tenon.io – starting at $82 / month for 3,000 API calls

21. Siteimprove – starting at 250 pages for $3,000/year

22. Siteimprove – starting at 250 pages for $3,000/year

23. C L A U D I O L U I S V E R A , R O Y A L C A R I B B E A N
Testing vendors
Small- and medium-sized businesses
Tenon.io
Siteimprove
AudioEye
Enterprise
Level Access
Deque Systems
Siteimprove

24. C L A U D I O L U I S V E R A , R O Y A L C A R I B B E A N
How to get more involved
Get trained
Courses are available through Deque U.
Get certified
Core (CPACC), technical (WAS) and
combined (CPWA) certification
DHS Trusted Tester Program
Join
Web Accessibility Group at UGA
IAAP
Accessibility groups in various open
source projects (Wordpress, Drupal)
web-a11y Slack channel
Great Lakes ADA / a11y-chi

25. C L A U D I O L U I S V E R A , R O Y A L C A R I B B E A N
Resources
WAVE accessibility tester (Chrome/Firefox)
axe accessibility tester (Chrome dev tools)
Contrast checker from the Mac App Store
Google Developer tools
IAAP (International Association of
Accessibility Professionals)
Deque University (accessibility courses)
UGA Web Accessibility Group (WAG)
Accessibility testing on a $7 budget,
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