WUP offers accessibility audits.
Why and when
Conducting an accessibility audit is an essential part of evaluating the accessibility of your site. When done in combination with Usability testing with disabled users, it forms a comprehensive accessibility evaluation of your site, as recommended by the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative.
The testing reveals the technical issues that are likely to prevent or hinder disabled users in accessing your site. Improving the technical accessibility for disabled users increases accessibility for all users and:
- Helps you comply with your obligations under the Disability Discrimination Act (part III) and the Disability Equality Duty.
- Increases your audience reach to key demographics. Accessible sites can be used by more people - people with disabilities, older people, people with low literacy, people who are not fluent in the language of the site, people with low bandwidth connections to the Internet, people with older technologies, and new and infrequent Web users
- Improves the visibility and reputation of the site to search engines such as Google
- Improves the performance of the site on newer technologies such as mobile phone browsers
An accessibility audit can be conducted at the templating stage of a new website, or on a working site as part of an improvements cycle. It is most effective when combined with Usability testing with disabled users.
Our approach
We approach accessibility from a standpoint of practicality of implementation. The solutions recommended are assessed in terms of priority and effort of implementation. We have designed our audit to give you worked solutions to any problems found, and a context within which to apply them. The reporting is structured to aid implementation at various levels of your organisation from executive to manager to developer
How we do accessibility audits
A representative selection of pages from your site is agreed with you and is then subjected to a series of tests:
- Each page is first checked for compliance with the 65 Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAGv1.0, as laid down by the W3C). The testing does not rely on automated checking - each page is evaluated ‘by hand’, as the W3C recommends.
- Further best practice checks are conducted as appropriate to the client. These might include:
- Best practice guidelines for accessible PDF documents
- Best practice guidelines for accessible Macromedia Flash content
- Best practice guidelines for multi-language (e.g. where information is presented in English, Bengali, Urdu for UK audiences) or bilingual (e.g. where content is presented in a mixture of English and Welsh) sites
- US Section 508 (with report containing a suggested VPAT)
- RNIB ‘See It Right’ guidelines
- UK Government Guidance for public sector websites
- Assistance with PAS78 requirements is also available
- Practical and aesthetic performance tests across a range of browsers (e.g. Internet Explorer, Opera, Mozilla) and assistive technologies (e.g. JAWS, HomePage Reader, Lynx)
- A formal readability test is conducted on the site with results given according to the Flesch Reading Ease scale. Clients may also request a Plain English Review, a service from the Plain English Campaign, and apply for an Internet Crystal Mark.
Outputs
The report can be made available as bound documents, PDFs or as XHTML web pages, and is designed to enable your web team to immediately begin work on bringing your site up to standard. It comprises:
Executive summary
The single-sheet executive summary sheet is designed for efficient reporting to technical and non-technical senior management.
The current accessibility standard of the site is reported, with graphs showing the progress made to each of the three levels of accessibility: A, AA and AAA.
The summary then provides a quick overview of the evaluation, noting the methods used for evaluating the site, and setting out in plain English the major problems to deal with - and an estimate of the resources (man hours and expertise) required to bring the site up to the next (often the lowest) level of compliance with the WCAG1.0 accessibility guidelines.
The summary is intended to provide senior management with the information needed to approve work to make the site accessible.
Web Manager’s Report
The web manager’s report gives a management overview of the project, detailing the evaluation results for the site, including an overview of site-wide problems and a matrix showing guidelines passed, failed or not applicable.
A summary is given of each piece of work required to bring the site up to level A, AA and AAA compliance with the WCAG1.0 accessibility guidelines, together with time estimates and level of difficulty of each piece of work. This allows managers to make an informed decision about which work can be carried out in-house, and which will need specialist accessibility expertise.
The report also gives the results of practical and aesthetic performance tests across a range of browsers (e.g. Internet Explorer, Opera, Mozilla) and assistive technologies (e.g. JAWS, HomePage Reader, Lynx), and formal readability results, based on the Flesh Reading Ease scale. Clients may also request a Plain English Review, a service from the Plain English Campaign, and apply for an Internet Crystal Mark.
Finally, the document provides appendices detailing each of the WCAG1.0 checkpoints and the text selected for the readability tests.
Page-by-page Report
The Page-by-Page report is a detailed accessibility analysis of each significantly different page-type on your web site. Each page is checked for compliance with each of the 65 WCAG1.0 checkpoints, and optionally with UK governmental recommendations and best practice advice drawn from the RNIB, Dyslexia research, and the British Bankers Association Accessibility Guidelines.
Each page entry provides the name and web address of the page tested, a screenshot, detailed notes on accessibility issues arising from the evaluation of the page, and finally a listing of each failed checkpoint.
The Page-by-Page report is designed to be used concurrently with the Accessibility Solutions Handbook. Each failed checkpoint can be cross-referenced with the appropriate entry in the Handbook to find a solution complete with worked code example from one of the pages on your site.
Accessibility Solutions Handbook
The Accessibility Solutions Handbook gives a solution for every checkpoint failed during the page-by-page evaluation. Each checkpoint is given an extended explanation, the reason the checkpoint was failed, and a worked code example drawn from your site. Each solution also explains:
- Why the checkpoint is important
- The user groups that will benefit from ensuring that your site passes the checkpoint
- A best practice tip
- A list of failing pages for cross-referencing with the Page-by-Page Report
- Short introductions of the kinds of users who might benefit from the accessibility solutions are given in the Handbook’s appendix. In addition to introducing five users with varying accessibility needs, the section also covers the search engine GoogleTM, the world’s most prolific ‘blind user’.
Template build
Once the evaluations are complete, our designers will take an existing page from the site and rebuild it from the ground up, incorporating all recommendations from the report documents, and commenting the code extensively.
- Template visually reproduces the existing page.
- Fully separates style from content
- Tested across a range of browsers, including:
- Internet Explorer 5.01
- Internet Explorer 5.5
- Internet Explorer 6.0
- Internet Explorer 7.0
- Firefox (latest version)
- Opera (latest version)
- Safari for Mac (latest version)
- JAWS screen reader (various versions)
- Window Eyes screen reader (various versions)
- Any others as specified by the client e.g. Mobile phone browsers
Fees
Most of our work is tailored to individual client’s requirements and we quote an inclusive price each piece of work. However, typically we charge a fixed fee (e.g. £1,500) plus a charge per page type tested (i.e. £100). So a 20 page type audit would cost £3,500.
Contact us for more information on how WUP can help make your web site more effective