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I'm looking for the tool for accessibility check (the system I'm working on should comply with WCAG2AA). At the moment we use a code sniffer from squiz labs, which we manually run against our pages.

I would like to take it a step further and have it as a part of TFS gated checkin. I'm aware this is not as trivial (we use ASP.NET MVC) and will require a browser engine to generate html as part of the same process. There also might be situations when a suppression would have to be added, etc.

Would be grateful if someone could point me in the right direction or maybe there is already a tool (in that case probably combination of tools), which I'm not aware of.

Alex M
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  • Which version of visual studio / tfs? 2012 has a new concept called test runners which could do this. – Betty Dec 23 '12 at 23:54
  • @Betty could expand a bit, how would a test runner help me in achieving this? – Alex M Dec 24 '12 at 10:34
  • You could then write a bunch of unit tests which request each page and run the code sniffing tool. Actually ordinary c# unit tests could probably do it, but for some reason i was thinking javascript – Betty Dec 24 '12 at 19:32
  • @Betty, which code sniffing tool do you have in mind? – Alex M Dec 28 '12 at 14:56
  • The one you mentioned above, it appears to have a REST api – Betty Dec 31 '12 at 01:03
  • So what is a test runner role in all this and why you say it is a new concept, isn't it a part of vs2010? Do you mean I can run tests as part of checkin process (which I alreay do)? – Alex M Jan 03 '13 at 21:28
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    vs2010 really only has 1 test runner - for mstest c# unit tests. vs2012 lets you write you own, which allows you to run tests from other frameworks (xunit, nunit etc) or other languages (javascript etc). A custom test runner isn't needed if they're just c# unit tests, but I was originally thinking javascript, not c#. – Betty Jan 03 '13 at 22:31

1 Answers1

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Accessibility checks can't be entirely made by automatic tools (it needs a human to decide if these headings make sense in a page for example), but it's still a great help for half of the tests you've to run.

I'm aware of:

  • Tanaguru, an open source solution that you can install (Java Tomcat thing) or run as a service. It'll check against your source code (before any DOM modification) many tests from Accessiweb reference list, an understandable (pun intended) implementation of WCAG2.0. The silver level is equivalent to AA level of conformance.
    For Tanaguru service, you can provide a test login and password if your server is private and for the standalone code, being open source you can add it to your development process the way you want. You can test Tanaguru here: http://my.tanaguru.com/?lang=en
  • WAVE Toolbar will run against code in your browser. This is a Firefox extension, beware that http://wave.webaim.org/ will check HTML code sent from server, not in the browser (the difference is about JS modifying the DOM)
  • Opquast is both a checklist about quality (accessibility and many other things unrelated, check it at least once it's worth it ;) and a paid service: Opquast reporting. You can run your pages against the Opquast checklist or Accessibility first steps and second steps (this is not WCAG 2.0, it's about the errors that are so obvious you should have repaired before going further with accessibility improvements).
    Opquast reporting will export results as PDF, DOC/ODT as well as CSV so you can use it with your own automated test environment.
    EDIT 2014: Opquast Desktop is a Firefox extension that'll test pages in your browser (there were a few quirks with Win8, be patient if it's still the case and they aren't on AMO because Mozilla will change their requirements overnight... but knowing personnally and having worked for the awesome team that is behind Opquast, I trust them)
  • Tenon.io by K. Groves is a new service I barely tested till now, but it's worth checking it

Related article: http://webaim.org/articles/freetools/ (quite old if it doesn't speak of WCAG 2.0, but formats and such are still an interesting read)

FelipeAls
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  • I'm aware it can't be entirely automatic (that's why I was thinking about kinda suppression possibility). I'm grateful for your reply, but the tools you enlisted all seem to be online only and the website I'm working is internal, with quite sensitive information. Would there be a way to make this check without exposing a 3rd party access? – Alex M Dec 28 '12 at 14:55
  • Tanaguru can be installed locally (it's open source so you can do whatever you want with the code or use it as a paid service. Or both). There's a mailing list if you run into problems doing so. Opquast could be installed on your own server but its price is undisclosed and the plan below this one is already 500€/month. Still worth it (by far!) if you work for a Fortune500 company but maybe it's not the case ;) – FelipeAls Dec 29 '12 at 19:45
  • I will look into Tanaguru more, but meanwhile, how would you apply Tanaguru to mvc views as part of gated checkin? Could something like selenium be a possible solution? – Alex M Jan 03 '13 at 21:32