How useful are accessibility evaluation tools?

6 Responses to How useful are accessibility evaluation tools?

1. JackP says:

   January 27, 2006 at 9:52 pm

   Are you SURE this one can be fully automated?
   9.1 Provide client-side image maps instead of server-side image maps except where the regions cannot be defined with an available geometric shape.

   As I read it, what you can automate is “have you provided a client-side image map” or even at best (which I think is unlikely) “do you have a server side image map that is not currently defined with an available geometric shape”. As it is unlikely that the automated tool will know the purpose of the server-side image map, I imagine it would be impossible for an automated tool to determine whether or not a server-side image map could be adjusted to still suit the purpose and also fit an available geometric shape.

   Okay, I’m going to the far end of a fart on this one, but I think this is another one to move into the second category…
2. Karl Dawson says:

   January 27, 2006 at 10:54 pm

   Yeah, I’ve read that checkpoint a few times now and I think a tool would check for a client-side image map and award a tick in the box if found. If a server-side image map was detected, then you would need to perform a manual check for equivalent text links. I don’t have much, if any experience with image maps but if you have a legitimate reason for it to be server-side then you will have to manually check it.

   I don’t know, I’m inclined to leave it in the first group because I think the intention was to check for a client-side image map only. But then again, if it were server-side you’d need to manually check for redundant text links to pass it. Even as the article stands now, 5 wholly automatic checks out of 65 is pretty poor going. Removing the last Priority 1 checkpoint from the list is academic if you were thinking of buying a tool after reading this…
3. Grant Broome says:

   February 8, 2006 at 3:08 pm

   Karl, good article, I would agree with Jack though and add that if you are saying that you would check to detect an image map, and then manually check for equivalent text links, then that is very similar to checking an image for an appropriate alt text. There’s no tool that can check the links to see if they are equivalent.
4. Karl Dawson says:

   February 8, 2006 at 6:34 pm

   Cheers Grant, 2 to 1 in favour of kicking 9.1 out (but I don’t really disagree).

   When I get a few mins, I’ll amend – so kick me in a week if not done. I just wanted to quickly acknowledge your comment
5. JackP says:

   February 10, 2006 at 10:28 am

   Okay then, while I’m being awkward:
   12.4 – an automated checker can check if a label is associated with a control but not that it’s associated with the right control. Eg Name and Address labels and fields. How does it know which is which unless it can understand the purpose to which that form field will be put. Some manual checking still required?
   4.3 – it can check if a primary language is identified. But unless it’s really clever, will it actually determine if it’s the right one? If you put “en” and then spell “colour” will it tell you that you’re wrong ?(should be “en-gb” for us UKers) If not, then again it’s a manual one.

   I’ll let you keep the validate and deprecate ones though
6. Karl Dawson says:

   February 10, 2006 at 9:01 pm

   haha Jack, cheers!

   I assume 12.4 checks for matching for and id attribute values – as to whether you code them correctly in the first place is a matter for manual QA checking, yeah.

   4.3 is naughty because it uses the word “primary” with the word “natural”. W3C have already used the phrase primary language to mean metadata about the document as a whole with “natural language” equating to the text-processing language that is more specific and defined via the lang or xml:lang attribute. Thankfully, the accompanying guidelines for 4.1 and 4.3 sort out the ambiguity.