Basic Accessibility Testing

To begin with select a representative sampling of pages that match the following criteria:
Include all pages on which people are more likely to enter your site (“welcome page”, etc.). Include a variety of pages with different layouts and functionality, for example:

• Web pages with tables, forms, or dynamically generated results
• Web pages with informative images such as diagrams or graphs
• Web pages with scripts or applications that perform functionality

1. Turn off images, and check whether appropriate alternative text for the images is available.

2. Turn off the sound, and check whether audio content is still available through text equivalents.

3. Use browser controls to vary font-size: verify that the font size changes on the screen accordingly; and that the page is still usable at larger font sizes.

4. Test with different screen resolution, and/or by resizing the application window to less than maximum, to verify that horizontal scrolling is not required (caution: test with different browsers, or examine code for absolute sizing, to ensure that it is a content problem not a browser problem).

5. Change the display color to gray scale (or print out page in gray scale or black and white) and observe whether the color contrast is adequate.

6. Without using the mouse, use the keyboard to navigate through the links and form controls on a page (for example, using the “Tab” key), making sure that you can access all links and form controls, and that the links clearly indicate what they lead to.