Can I check whether a site is accessible?

There are some quick tests that can show whether a website is built in a way that will help accessibility:

Validation tests

You can run a web page through the W3C validator to test the HTML code.

Just copy the address of the web page (e.g. from your browser's address bar) then go to the validator page, paste in the address and click the ‘check’ button. As well as testing for valid code, the validator will tell you what type of HTML is used: ‘frameset’ is bad, ‘transitional’ is OK and ‘strict’ is best.

Checking the content

By temporarily switching off the CSS styling of a web page, you can see the underlying content.

If you use Internet Explorer, first download and save a basic stylesheet (here's a basic stylesheet you can use, just click on it then save). To use it, follow these instructions from the BBC's ‘My Web My Way’.

With Firefox, just go to ‘Page style’ on the ‘View’ menu, and select ‘No style’ (you can switch back to ‘Basic page style’ afterwards).

The page should appear like a Word document - basic black and white text with headings and links (blue or purple). All other colour and background images should vanish, the only remaining images should be relevant ones like photographs. The text should appear in a single column. The page should still be perfectly usable.

If the page retains background colours and images, has the text in more than one column, or becomes difficult to understand, these are bad signs.

Changing the text size

A web page should allow you to change the size of the text, and the design shouldn't go haywire if you make the text bigger.

The BBC's ‘My Web My Way’ web pages give instruction on how to do this:

If all of the text enlarges and the web page design accommodates it, that's good.

Automated tests

There are some automatic tests that can check the content and structure of a web page. These are limited and can make mistakes, but they are a useful starter, providing some points to follow up:

University of Illinois Functional Accessibility Evaluator
Hermish.com's Section 508 tester checks against US Government Section 508 criteria.

These tests don't tell you about the detailed level of accessibility of a page, but they give a good indication as how much thought went into accessibility when it was built, and how easy it would be to make it accessible.

A professional accessibility audit will give you the full information you need on what needs doing to make a website accessible. This is a service that we can provide. You can also receive an audit from the RNIB, and have your site certified to whichever standard is required, after any remedial work has been done.