Free and Open Source Tools for Integrating Web Accessibility into the Design Process

This session will present free and open source tools that can be used to evaluate the accessibility of web resources to people with disabilities. The tools include the Fangs for Firefox, Color Contrast Analyzer, WAVE technologies from WebAIM, Functional Accessibility Evaluator, the Accessibility Evaluator for Firefox and the AInspector for Firebug. The session will discuss the advantages and pitfalls of using assistive technologies like Screen readers to assess accessibility, including screen readers like Jaws, WindowEyes and Non-Visual Desktop Application (NVDA). The session will discuss the strengths and weakness of the various tools for evaluating web accessibility. A best practices methodology will be introduced to design accessibility into web resources at deign time and references the new accessibility features found in Druple 7 will be included. The session overall goal is to help web developers integrate accessibility into the design process rather than wait until the end of development to address accessibility issues.

Video on archive.org.