From Jennifer Kyrnin,
Your Guide to Web Design / HTML.
FREE Newsletter. Sign Up Now!

Using an accessibility validator is a bit trickier than using an HTML validator - mostly because you have more manual work you have to do. When you validate a page with an HTML validator, all it needs to check is that your HTML is written according to the standards that you validated against. While this is all an accessibility validator does, it is difficult for a computer to determine if, for example, your alternative text is actually describing the image - rather than saying "alt text" or being a space character.

In this article I will take you through the steps you need to make to make a site meet the WCAG guidelines and pass an accessibility validator.

Step 1: Submit Your Site to an Accessibility Validator

I chose to validate my site with WebXACT because it offers several other checks beyond just accessibility. But there are several accessibility validators you can choose from.

Step 2: Did you pass the priority 1 checkpoint?

In order to be considered accessible, your Web site must, at minimum, pass the priority 1 checkpoint. But don't worry if you didn't. Unless you are a Web accessibility guru, chances are you forgot an alt attribute somewhere on the page.

Step 3: If you didn't pass, then first fix all the Priority 1 errors.

Errors, when it comes to accessibility are the issues that the validator can actually see. These will be things like missing alt text, missing form text, etc. Since they're easy to find, they are usually easy to fix. On the site I tested, I realized that the image that was missing the alt text was actually not showing up at all - so I just removed it completely.

Step 4: Once you've fixed all the Priority 1 errors, take a look at the warnings.

Warnings are usually the things that the accessibility validator can't check for sure. A human has to look at the page and verify that yes, it's correct, or no it's not. On my page I needed to check:

• Do the images convey more information than the alt text provides?
  If yes, then a longdesc attribute should point to a long description.
• Does color convey information on the site?
  If yes, then I need to make sure that it's also conveyed in another way.
• Do I change the language anywhere inside the document?
  If yes, then I should indicate that.
• Does the page work without style sheets?
  If no, then I need to rework the HTML so that it's still understandable.
• Do any of my scripts convey content information?
  If yes, then I need to make sure I have a noscript element to convey it to agents that can't read scripts.
• Does the page work without the scripts?
  If no, then I need to rework the scripts so that there are alternatives. Be especially careful with scripted navigation.
• Does the page, or any element on it flicker rapidly?
  If yes, then I should consider carefully if I really need those elements to flash and flicker.
• Are there accessible alternatives to elements in scripts, applets, or objects?
  If no, then I need to create them.
• Is the language as simple and straightforward as possible?
  If no, I should rework the content to make it simpler.

Once you've satisified this priority, your site should validate as accessible to conformance level A.

Step 5: Fix the errors under the Priority 2 checkpoint.

Priority 2 checkpoint elements should be satisfied to be compliant. If you don't satisfy this checkpoint you won't get Triple-A conformance, and some groups will find it difficult to access information on your site.

On the site I checked, I had two errors at priority 2:

• Some event handlers required the use of a mouse. So I added "onkeypress" to the onclick references so that when a keyboard was clicked the javascript would work.
• The same link phrase was used to point to different pages. Because I was testing a blog, it was objecting to the "trackback" links. I had to change those to say "Post ## trackback".

Step 6: Check the Priority 2 warnings.

Like Priority 1, warnings are the things you'll need to manually verify for your site. Once you've satisified this priority, your site should validate as accessible to conformance level Double-A.

Step 7: Fix Priority 3 errors and check Priority 3 warnings.

Priority 3 indicates a checkpoint that Web designers may address. If you don't satisfy this checkpoint some groups may find it somewhat difficult to access your Web site. Once you've satisified this priority, your site should validate as accessible to conformance level Triple-A.

On the site I was validating, I had forgotten to identify the language of the site, using the lang attribute in the html tag.

Step 8: Validate your site again.

Once I fixed all the above issues, I revalidated my site with WebXACT, and this time it passed all the automatic checks. Since I didn't remove the images or other text that was causing the warnings to show up, it still indicates that my site requires manual verification. But assuming that my site passes the manual verification I could say that it is Triple-A accessible.

Comment on the article.