WebAim Accessibility Checker Review

It’s often said that the internet’s real power lies in its universality. However, to harness the internet’s full control and make it truly universal, it must be made accessible for everyone, including people living with a disability. It took many years for accessibility campaigners to get this message across. But eventually, web accessibility has become the new normal.

If you’re looking to evaluate your website’s accessibility, one of the best tools to do so is the WebAim Accessibility Checker. With its ability to evaluate any website and ensure that essential accessibility guidelines have been complied with, it’s no surprise that this checker is getting increasingly popular. It’s a proven solution, but to see if it’s as good as advertised, read our WebAim Accessibility Checker review.

Imagine the world before the advent of the internet. Also, imagine what it’s like for a blind man to read a newspaper or magazine. It will take going to the library for a Braille version of the newspaper or an audiotape recording.

However, life is made more comfortable with the internet. This is so because, in recent times, the internet now has guidelines that ensure certain features to improve accessibility for persons living with a disability are put in place.

One of the most centralized and widely accepted guidelines is laid by the World Wide Web Consortium. This body produced the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), seeking to apply standard features for every web platform. The latest recommendation is the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1, which was adopted in 2018 to improve the 2.0 version that trended the POUR principles.

POUR

The POUR principles of web accessibility is a short form of how a web design and content must be perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust. These four principles are the significant and non-changing aspect of the WCAG 2.0 applicable to all internet content. 

There is a need to mention that the WCAG principles are not all-inclusive. Other guidelines seem to guide the affairs of web accessibility like the sections 504 and 508 Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the Part III of the Disability Discrimination Act of the UK, and so on, depending on the country where such website is operational. 

In their most recent and very critical research into the top one million websites and domains, WebAim claims that 97.8% of homepages of these critically examined one million pages have detectable WCAG 2.0 and Level AA non-compliance errors. They have also reemphasized their mission to ensure all websites, evaluated through them, are genuinely accessible by all disabled people. This is only one of the many significant activities that have proven WebAim to be a company with the explicit mission of making all websites accessible to people living with disabilities.

Since 1999, they have stayed committed to this mission, developing software and solutions to evaluate web accessibility. Their approach has been basic ever since its inception. They have been surmounting web accessibility barriers by training web authors and professional web accessibility evaluators to utilize their medium in bringing their websites into full compliance with web accessibility guidelines.

The WebAim accessibility checker reviews websites using a tool they have designed to ensure web accessibility compliance. This tool, the Wave web accessibility evaluation tool, was launched in 2001. Wave is intended to be a software suite where web authors can scan through their web pages to detect compliance errors and seek primary education on how to bring their webpages to full compliance with the universal Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. However, the inquisition is about how effective and efficient this WebAim tool is for web accessibility evaluation and remediation implementation.

When one considers the many features cooked up into this tool by WebAim, it is easy to declare it one of the decade’s best web accessibility testing tools.

They have designed many products that allow web authors to evaluate their website’s web accessibility to ensure that WCAG 2.0 and 2.1 compliance are adequately met.

The WebAim accessibility checker reviews webpages by offering a straightforward approach. Thus, you get to enjoy two offers from Wave, the first being the ability to self-evaluate the web pages using the free Wave single page URL checker. Simultaneously, the other allows you to use paid automated evaluation scanners to seek non-compliance errors on multiple pages.

One distinctive quality of Wave Web accessibility checker review is the visual feedback results. For every page that has been subjected to accessibility valuation, self-explanatory visual feedback is attached as the result page. This visual feedback uses colors, error indications, and icons as a way of indicating non-compliance errors. Also, Wave is not limited to certain types of pages or code set up. Thus, you can run accessibility checks on personal and public domains and those web content with Java scripts.

This free web accessibility compliance checker is available as a browser extension in Wave Google Chrome and Wave Firefox. This means right from a web page, you can check whether or not the carrier comes with any form of web accessibility non-compliance.

In this WebAim web accessibility checker review, we have ensured to include information on pricing because this is an integral part of solutions that web owners seek. Wave offers paid tools that assist with automated and in-depth compliance analysis of multiple web pages for a more comprehensive web page evaluation. The Wave Runner, the Wave API, and the Wave Stand-Alone API are examples of those more automated tools.

Wave Runner

With the Wave Runner, WebAim skilled professionals help you analyze and evaluate your webpages to make them entirely accessible by people living with disabilities. A detailed report sheet of all the accessibility errors in your website and comprehensive remediation guidelines accompany the report within two to five days. This tool is suitable for pages with 10,000 pages and above and very easy to use.

By completing the form and making your order, everything that needs to be fixed on your website to bring it in total conformity with accessibilities guidelines shall be identified.

Wave API

On the other hand, Wave API uses the Wave processing engine to actualize end-user web accessibility. Thus, this tool offers you a remote and automated evaluation of your web pages using experts from the WebAim center to ensure full compliance with all WCAG2.0 and 2.1 requirements. 

By simply registering for new API keys, you get free credits that set you up for an instant evaluation of your web pages. All requests are customizable, and a full report on accessibility evaluation from web accessibility experts comes with your request.

Wave Stand-Alone API

The Wave Stand-Alone API is the most critical and comprehensive evaluation tool created by WebAim. They have several versions that attract different pricing rates. 

With this tool, you can regularly run scheduled analysis on your website, including intranets, secure web pages, and non-public websites. You also get a customized report on your website regardless of the number of web pages. You will never be restricted by any restrictive capacity of Wave’s accessibility processing engines.

Wave Runner

The Wave Runner tools cost $500 for up to 10,000 pages, and a re-evaluation costs just half the price for up to 10,000 words.

Wave API

Your analysis request will also determine the cost; however, fundamental analysis for one web page costs $0.4.

Wave Stand-Alone API

The cheapest version cost as much as $4000, and it could be more depending on your API call usage and license agreement.