Share your favorite accessibility tools!

[emilyk23]

I would love to hear from the group: What are your favorite tools for ensuring accessible content? 

Please share by replying below. 😊 

[mtuten]

Hi Emily,

I am an accessibility coordinator in our online education department. With 10 years of experience, I probably rely more on testing with a screen reader or on reading the HTML than using tools. But, these are the tools I like:

• [Built-in accessibility checkers in Canvas, Microsoft, and Adobe Acrobat]
• TPGi's color contrast analyzer
• WebAIM's color contrast analyzer bookmarklet - a good alternative for those who can't/won't install TPGi's program (It doesn't work on the Windows version of Mozilla Firefox)
• Images Bookmarklet - reveals all alt text at once to help sighted individuals check for description completeness and accuracy more quickly.
• Title Attributes Bookmarklet - reveals all title attributes at once so I can determine if iframes have title attributes and if the attributes accurately describe the iframe's (or other) content.
• 24 by 24 pixel cursor bookmarklet - a good (but visual only) tool for ensuring sufficient spacing around links in a list and buttons which are close together
• PAC for PDFs - a very technical checker (e.g. Do you know what a bounding box is? I didn't before this checker.). It also checks for PDF/UA compliance. Would not recommend it for those who are not working with PDFs on a near daily basis.
• For testing external web resources (i.e. those which are linked, embedded, or integrated in the course) 
  • Wave Checker and its browser extension - Good for beginners but not great for testing full compliance. Also, is unable work on some web resources.
  • ANDI bookmarklet - Good yet slightly technical tool for testing WCAG 2.0 AA compliance. Also, is unable work on some web resources (particularly several password protected ones). -- This is the tool that those who complete the free Trusted Tester Certification are taught to use.
  • Text Spacing bookmarklet - Something I use to supplement ANDI to test for a WCAG 2.1 criteria. This bookmarklet would also be generally used on external web resourced.
  • Bookmarklets that reveal the focus indicator when the external web resource has either hidden or mismanaged focus:
    • Force Show Keyboard Focus
    • Focus Outlines
    • Outline all the things
    • WTFocus 
      • There's also a Lost Focus Alert and a Focus Order that I'm just now noticing that may be helpful too. I would not expect them (especially the order one) to be full accurate though.

Our institution also uses Yuja Panorama in Canvas. It is a good tool, but the projects I have had since its acquisition have not lent themselves to me using it often (except, perhaps the analytics side). 

Checking how the content looks from the Canvas mobile apps is also important.

[emilyk23]

Wow 😍 this is incredible info - thank you for sharing the links and details @mtuten! I'm going to be bookmarking this for my own knowledge and homework.  We appreciate your willingness to share your expertise and resources!  

[sbj]

That's a terrific list @mtuten has shared. Our campus uses Ally to check and remediate content in Canvas, and I'm pretty happy with that tool. We previously used UDOIT, which has undergone some great updates and is also an awesome choice for checking and guiding instructors and designers to make accessible content.

The only thing I would add, is that it is very important to educate ourselves and the users we work with on the how's and why's of accessible digital content: why it matters.  A great starting point is the WC3 video Introduction to Web Accessibility (4:07) 

A lot of the accessibility checkers use AI, and it is important to understand that there are often false positives and false negatives with any of these checkers. 

[emilyk23]

@sbj I appreciate the call out to be cautious and review the findings of AI-generated checkers. And thanks for the video! 🙂 

[szw151]

Thanks for that great list of tools and resources. I want to share a Penn State resource to help people create beautiful content in Canvas: the Canvas Styles resource - all styles have been vetted for accessibility and responsive design and we provide guidance for use of the styles to ensure they stay accessible. 

[mtuten]

I love this resource! Though there are a few things they recommend that I would do differently.

First, any time that you use a <details><summary> accordion, be sure to add "style="cursor: pointer;" to the summary attribute so that the mouse cursor changes to the pointing hand when hovering on the item to further emphasize that it is clickable.

Second, I don't use the code they suggest for creating columns--or, more accurately, "Row of Resizeable Images." My experiences so far with flex grids is that they don't create what I believe to be an ideal mobile experience. Admittedly, I learned bootstrap grid first, so I may be biased. 

[szw151]

I think we do use the cursor pointer style in some places, but not all - that's great feedback!  Regarding the flex-grid code, when I look at our current pages, the any grouped items: images, tables, or boxes, all display in a verticle column on a mobile device, which is what we wanted. But if you have a better approach, I would be very interested in learning more.

[valentinesking]

Part of our university (UPenn) uses PopeTech while the business school (Wharton) uses UDOIT Advantage from Cidi Labs to identify some issues. We build on the great list of tools/resources @mtuten noted. Also, we use external vendors to address some content.

But even the best tools, don't pick up everything. As @sbj mentioned, educating our internal users that accessibility is everyone's responsibility and best practices is key. Some of this is formal training opportunities, while others occur 1:1 with faculty addressing specific use-of-non-best-practices. When evaluating new technology, it's VPAT provision & WCAG level discussion is a must.

Great question @emilyk23!

Val King, the ID

Sr. ID Project Leader, The Wharton School at UPenn 

[emilyk23]

CidiLabs/UDOIT is another great partner solution! 

Agreed, more generalized knowledge about web accessibility is a key component.

If any institutions need a starting place, @EvaSnider from Ball State shared this blog post about their self-paced faculty training course that is also shared on the Commons. 

[Maeve_McCooey]

I've found Anthology Ally to be incredibly helpful. It's not a standalone tool, but rather integrates directly into Canvas.

Here's what I like about it:

• Automatic Accessibility Checks: It scans course files and gives instructors instant feedback on how to make them more accessible.
• Alternative Formats: Ally automatically generates alternative formats like audio versions and HTML, giving students more choice in how they access materials.
• Instructor Support: It provides clear guidance and resources to help instructors create accessible content from the start.
• Content Accessibility Score: It gives a score to the instructor letting them know how accessible their content is.
• Overall Course Score: Ally also provides an overall accessibility score for the entire course, giving a quick snapshot of how accessible the course is as a whole.
• Quick Fixes: It allows instructors to apply quick fixes to common accessibility issues directly within Canvas.
• Admin/Support Features: For admins and support personnel, Ally provides rolled-up accessibility scores for sub-accounts, allowing for a broader view of accessibility across the institution.

It really streamlines the process of making course content more inclusive.

[rachelorston · Accepted solution]

So many great recommendations and resources! Thank you @Maeve_McCooey @valentinesking @szw151 @mtuten @sbj !