Automated Tools for Testing the accessibility

To check if your website is accessible to other people or not who are extraordinary personalities with disabilities. There are some automated tools that crawl your website’s code with the existing content on it and flags the errors based on WCAG.

Some free automated tools :

• WAVE Accessibility Evaluation Tool - by WebAIM.

• axe DevTools - by Deque

Tool to check some specific area of code or content :

• HeadingMap - available for Chrome and Firefox.

Color contrast checker :

• Contrast Checker - by WebAIM.

Screen readers :

• NVDA - This is free and open source screen reader which has a synthetic voice that reads whatever the cursor hovers over, and can be used directly.

• Chromevox screen Reader - It is a chrome extension which works only in browser.

• JAWS - It provides speech and braille output for the most popular computer applications.

Vision simulation tools :

• NoCoffee Vision Simulator - Simulates various vision conditions like color blindness, blurriness, and low contrast directly in the browser. Useful for catching issues that automated contrast checkers miss.

• Funkify Disability Simulator - Simulates a range of disabilities including dyslexia, motor impairments, and different types of color blindness.

Scenarios and Edge Cases #

Things automated tools can miss #

Automated tools typically catch only 30-40% of accessibility issues. Here are areas where manual testing is essential :

• Keyboard-only navigation — Automated tools flag missing focus styles but cannot verify that tab order is logical, that focus is never trapped unintentionally, or that all interactive elements are reachable.

• Meaningful reading order — A page can pass all automated checks while the DOM order makes no sense to a screen reader.

• Dynamic content — Content loaded via JavaScript (accordions, infinite scroll, single-page app route changes) may not be announced. Use aria-live regions and test manually with a screen reader.

• Context-dependent alt text — Automated tools flag missing alt attributes, but they cannot judge whether the alt text you wrote actually conveys the right meaning in context.

Reduced motion and animation accessibility #

Users with vestibular disorders can experience nausea or dizziness from page animations. Test with :

@media (prefers-reduced-motion: reduce) {
    *,
    *::before,
    *::after {
        animation-duration: 0.01ms !important;
        animation-iteration-count: 1 !important;
        transition-duration: 0.01ms !important;
        scroll-behavior: auto !important;
    }
}

• Enable “Reduce motion” in your OS settings and verify that all animations are disabled or toned down.

• Chrome DevTools → Rendering → Emulate CSS media feature prefers-reduced-motion to test without changing OS settings.

Testing in different zoom levels #

• WCAG requires content to be usable at 200% zoom and text-only at 400% zoom. Automated tools do not test this.

• Check for content overlap, truncation, and horizontal scrolling at increased zoom levels.

Feel free to add more tools if you find useful.