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Cornell University

Recommended Web Accessibility Testing Plan

Step 1: Add Your Site to Siteimprove

The evaluation tool will scan your site, create a cached version, and generate a priority list of web pages that need the most attention.

If your site is protected/secure, Siteimprove will not crawl its pages; the service is setup for public sites only. However, the Siteimprove CMS Plug-In for Google Chrome (a Firefox version is currently in development) will allow you to evaluate your protected/secure site using a page-by-page approach, rather than a complete site scan). The plug-in version does not flag HTML validation errors, PDFs, or other media. Use other available tools to aid in these areas.

Step 2: Manual Testing

Once Siteimprove identifies your site’s priority pages, these pages–at a minimum–should be the focus of your manual testing. In addition, we suggest testing your home page and any other pages that require user interaction with content.

Manual testing resources include:

  • Screen Reader Testing
    • On a Mac, use VoiceOver, Apple’s built-in screen reading utility.
    • On a PC, use JAWS (Job Access With Speech) or NVDA (NonVisual Desktop Access).
  • Manual Keyboard Navigation and Shortcuts Testing
    • Disconnect your mouse and use only the keyboard to navigate your website.
  • Color Contrast Analyzer
    • Use NoCoffee Vision Simulator (or similar tools).
  • Additional Areas to Review Manually
    • Set your site to disable all images, and examine how the content changes.
    • To comply with robust testability requirements, your site should be checked for HTML and CSS errors, along with making sure it’s responsive when viewed on different devices. In general, accessibility-compliant sites are user friendly and optimized for SEO.

For more information on web accessibility testing, please refer to WebAIM.