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Most schools use WCAG 2.0
Mission
The mission of the Web Accessibility Initiative is to lead the web to its full potential to be accessible, enabling people with disabilities to participate equally on the Web

Create a process
Audit the website using 3.0
Post accessibility policy
Provide feedback
Features

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Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 prohibits discrimination based on disability in any program or activity operated by recipients of federal funds. Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) prohibits discrimination based on disability by public entities, regardless of whether they receive federal financial assistance.

Examples of the types of discrimination prohibited include inequitable access to educational programs and facilities, denial of a free appropriate public education for elementary and secondary students, and refusal to implement or inappropriate implementation of academic adjustments in higher education. A fuller list of Section 504 and Title II issues OCR addresses appears on the Disability Discrimination page. The regulations for Section 504 and Title II are enforced by OCR and appear in the Code of Federal Regulations here: Section 504 and Title II of the ADA.

Section 504 and Title II also prohibit employment discrimination; complainants may choose whether to pursue such complaints with OCR or with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

Find more information on Disability Discrimination here.

Links to Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and its implementing regulations:

Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and its implementing regulations:

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disability discrimination; laws; disabilities; civil rights; federal aid; education;

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Disability Discrimination: Overview of the Laws

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An overview of the laws enforced by OCR that prohibit discrimination based on disability.

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Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Both of those acts together prohibit discrimination by public entities and entities that receive federal funding.

* The law will and is being enforced :
Districts have been sued
Reference precedent cases

Responsibility:
School Districts

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Enforcement Activities - Cases Listed Chronologically by Document Type

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The legal documents on this page are grouped by type of document (e.g., briefs, consent decrees) and listed in reverse chronological order (most recent first). Use the links at the left to jump to specific types of documents or just scroll through the page for the whole list.

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Recommended web-based tools to check web page accessibility, against Section 508, include:

* WAVE -
This evaluator not only makes note of violations but also makes recommendations on how to make web pages more accessible. Evaluator provides a more "user-friendly" report that shows the web page with annotations of alerts and errors to be improved.

*AChecker -
An evaluator tool that was designed by the Adaptive Technology Resources Center. Like many others, you can check the accessibility by the URL. In addition, like many other web-based tools, this evaluator reports errors using web language (i.e. html, java). This report is not "user-friendly".

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By Justin Mifsud

Web-based websiteevaluation tools are a handy resource if you want to make sure your website meets established accessibility standards. Since website accessibility is a subset of website usability, you have to ensure your website is accessible in order to make it usable too.

If you'd like to brush up on Accessibility and get practical skills on the subject, then I recommend the online course on Accessibility.

A simple Google Search for " Accessibility Tools" yields a number of lists and collections of tools. I could have very easily copied one or two such lists and voila, I have a new post. But, I wanted to add a personal touch to this post by writing about the tools I use in my daily job. I was surprised by the number of broken links in the lists I visited - most of them linking to obsolete Accessibility Tools such as Bobby - some with links to the old 1995 website!

Thus, in this post, you will find tools that:

Are compatible with this definition of Usability.

Evaluate your website against accessibility guidelines. These may include the W3C's WCAG 1.0 and 2.0, Section 508, the Stanca Act (Italian Accessibility Law), BITV (web accessibility test of the German BIK project), RGAA (French Accessibility Law) or a combination of them. Some tools also have their own accessibility guidelines.

Are operated by simply giving them your URL. Some of them also allow you to upload your HTML file or pasting your HTML code.

Are all web-based, meaning that you will not need to download or install anything to use them.

Are not web browser plugins. Indeed, I have encountered a number of posts that mention the Firefox Accessibility Extension and the Web Accessibility Toolbar (for IE and Opera) so there was no use in listing them again here.

Do not take into consideration how websites are viewed on mobile devices. For this purpose I would recommend using W3C MobileOK Checker and mobiReady.

Before We Begin - A Warning

It is very important to keep in mind that to date, no website evaluation tool has been developed that can completely replace a human being. This is because with present technology it is difficult to emulate human attributes such as common sense. In this regard, these tools should be used with caution, and the results that they produce should be interpreted in context with the website you are evaluating. Moreover, since accessibility is a subset of usability, these tools should only be used to evaluate accessibility and not usability since, at best, they can only show you where your site is not accessible.

1. Accessibility Valet

Accessibility Valet is a tool that allows you to check Web pages against either Section 508 or W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) accessibility compliance. One URL at a time may be checked with this online tool in free mode, or unlimited use with paid subscription. All the HTML reporting options display your markup in a normalized form, highlighting valid, deprecated and bogus markup, as well as elements which are misplaced. Any accessibility warnings are shown in a generated report.

2. AChecker - Accessibility Checker

Accessibility Checker is an open source accessibility evaluation tool that was developed in 2009 by the Inclusive Design Research Centre (formerly known as the Adaptive Technology Resource Centre) of the University of Toronto. Using this tool, the user can submit a web page via its URL or by uploading its HTML file and can subsequently select which guidelines to evaluate it against, namely the HTML Validator, BITV, Section 508 , Stanca Act, WCAG 1.0 and WCAG 2.0.

3. Cynthia Says

The Cynthia Says portal is a Web content accessibility validation solution. It is designed to identify errors in your content related to Section 508 standards and/or WCAG compliance. This free tool, meant for educational purposes, is an online test which only validates one page at a time. is a web content accessibility validation tool that identifies errors in your design that are related to Section 508 standards and the WCAG guidelines.

4. EvalAccess

Developed by the University of the Basque Country in Spain, EvalAccess is one of the few tools that lets you evaluate an entire website for WCAG 1.0 compliance. It displays the results in an easy-to-read report, whilst describing each error detected. Whilst it may not be the most user friendly access tool, it can be sufficient to help most designers and developers clean up their sites.

5. FAE - Functional Accessibility Evaluator

The FAE evaluates a web page for its accessibility by referencing the ITAA Web Accessibility Standards which are based on the WCAG 1.0 and Section 508 guidelines. The results of the evaluation are broken into 5 categories: Navigation and Orientation, Text Equivalents, Scripting, Styling and HTML Standards. The judging of the overall performance in each category is a percentage, divided between Pass, Warn and Fail - thus enabling you to focus on the specific areas with most problems.

6. MAGENTA - Multi-Analysis of Guidelines by an ENhanced Tool for Accessibility

MAGENTA is a web-based accessibility tool developed by the Human Interface in Information Systems (HIIS) Laboratory within the Human Computer Interaction Group. In addition to the WCAG 1.0 guidelines it evaluates the accessibility of websites according to their conformance to guidelines for the visually impaired and guidelines included in the Stanca Act.

7. OCAWA - Operational Control and Analysis for Web Accessibility

Developed by Urbilog and Orange, OCAWA references the WCAG 1.0 and France's accessibility law, the RGAA. Users can submit the URL of the website or else upload an HTML file and the tool displays an accessibility audit report with links to the discovered violations.

8. TAW - Test de Accesibilidad Web

TAW references WCAG 1.0, 2.0 and its own set of ownfor mobile accessibility. Developed by the CTIC Centro Tecnólogico, TAW clearly marks the accessibility violations that it discovers by providing an annotated version of the website as well as recommendations on how to resolve them. It is available online and as a desktop application as well as a Firefox add-on.

9. WAVE - Web Accessibility Versatile Evaluator

WAVE is a tool developed by WebAIM that is available both online and as a Firefox add-on. It reports accessibility violations by annotating a copy of the page that was evaluated and at the same time, providing recommendations on how to repair them. Rather than providing a complex technical report, WAVE shows the original Web page with embedded icons and indicators that reveal the accessibility information within your page.

10. Web Accessibility Checker

Developed by the University of Stanford's Online Accessibility Program (SOAP), Web Accessibility Checker is a tool that can analyze individual web pages for their accessibility. Any detected problems are listed by the tool in a report that it outputs at the end of the evaluation. The user can choose to evaluate against multiple guidelines which include WCAG 1.0 and 2.0, Section 508, BITV and the Stanca Act.

Comparison of the above tools

WebSite Submission Methods

Accessibility Guidelines Referenced

Tool

URL

File

Paste

WCAG1

WCAG2

Sec508

Other

Accessibility Valet

Legend: W = W3C HTML Validator, B = BITV, S = Stanca Act, I = ITAA Web Accessibility Standards

V = Own Heuristics for Visually Impaired, R = RGAA, M = Own Mobile Heuristics

Want to learn more?

If you'd like to brush up on Accessibility and get practical skills on the subject, then consider to take the online course on Accessibility. If, on the other hand, you want to brush up on the basics of UX and Usability, then consider to take the online course on User Experience. Good luck on your learning journey!

(Lead image: Depositphotos)

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10 Free Web-Based Website Accessibility Evaluation Tools - Usability Geek

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By Justin Mifsud Web-based websiteevaluation tools are a handy resource if you want to make sure your website meets established accessibility standards. Since website accessibility is a subset of website usability , you have to ensure your website is accessible in order to make it usable too.

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What?
W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) - ensuring availability of tools and approaches that people with different kinds of disabilities may use to easily browse the Web and the bridge barriers they encounter due to poor design.

Web Content - Text, Images, Multimedia, etc.

User Agents - Web Browsers, Assistive Technologies, Plug-Ins, etc.

Authoring Tools - Code Editors, Blogs, Database Scripts, etc.

Getting Started:

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WAI: Strategies, guidelines, resources to make the Web accessible to people with disabilities

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Background:
A massive amount of standards, regulations, and expectations when individuals with disability are involved.
Findings
*International Initiative throughout the world.

*Guidelines have been established worldwide by:
W3C

* K-12 schools will be responsible for compliance

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Why?
It is essential for people with disabilities and useful for all. (Including business and educational purposes)

They will be able to navigate the web easier.

Users will become more confident with using computers and the web.

People will feel more comfortable when they are exploring for new information and topics of their interest.

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Who?
Content users with disabilities (both permanent and temporary)

auditory

cognitive

neurological

physical

speech

visual

Also - SmartPhone/SmartWatch users, aging population, environmental limitations - slow Internet, bright sunlight, etc.