Wave Evaluation Tool Download

[Renita Lukins]

WAVEis a suite of evaluation tools that helps authors make their web content more accessible to individuals with disabilities. WAVE can identify many accessibility and Web Content Accessibility Guideline (WCAG) errors, but also facilitates human evaluation of web content. Our philosophy is to focus on issues that we know impact end users, facilitate human evaluation, and to educate about web accessibility.

You can use the online WAVE tool by entering a web page address (URL) in the field above. WAVE Chrome, Firefox, and Edge browser extensions are available for testing accessibility directly within your web browser - handy for checking password protected, locally stored, or highly dynamic pages.

The WAVE subscription API and Stand-alone WAVE API and Testing Engine are powerful tools for easily collecting accessibility test data on many pages. The stand-alone API and Testing Engine can be integrated into your infrastructure for testing intranet, non-public, and secure pages, including in continuous integration processes.

Your Accessibility IMpact (AIM) assessment report provides detailed WAVE test data, your site's AIM score (a measure of end user impact compared to web pages generally and as determined by human testers), and expert manual test results to give you insights into the accessibility of your web site for users with disabilities.

WAVE is a web accessibility evaluation tool developed by WebAIM.org. It provides visual feedback about the accessibility of your web content by injecting icons and indicators into your page. No automated tool can tell you if your page is accessible, but WAVE facilitates human evaluation and educates about accessibility issues. All analysis is done entirely within the Chrome browser allowing secure valuation of intranet, local, password protected, and other sensitive web pages.To run a WAVE report, simply click on the WAVE icon to the right of your browser address bar, or select "WAVE this page" from the context menu.WAVE errors align with WCAG 2.2 failures. The WAVE interface facilitates human evaluation of many other aspects of accessibility and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and Section 508 compliance.Version 3.2.5.3 (February 2024) fixes numerous minor bugs and adds testing refinements. Some hidden inputs are no longer incorrectly flagged as not labeled.Version 3.2.4.4 (October 2023) fixes a few minor bugs with testing hidden content and with the sidebar contrast tools.Version 3.2.3.9 (June 2023) removes the warning message on UserWay pages due to them removing code that changes page content when the WAVE extension is activated.Version 3.2.3.8 (June 2023) includes numerous accessibility test enhancements, several minor bug fixes, and simplification of the contrast checking tools. Users are informed that WAVE results may be manipulated on pages that utilize UserWay or accessiBe overlays.Version 3.2.3 (March 2023) includes several minor bug fixes. A previous update to test for contrast errors in hidden elements has been reverted. While this was useful for finding contrast errors in drop-down menus, tab panels, dialog windows, etc., identification of errors in hidden elements caused user confusion and, in some rare cases, false positives.Version 3.2 (December 2022) includes over 100 bug fixes and performance enhancements. The extension no longer utilizes jQuery, resulting in faster testing and better compatibility with a variety of pages. A new Navigation Order panel is available that shows the navigation order, element roles, and accessible names (what is read by a screen reader) for all navigable elements.Version 3.1.6 (October 2021) includes numerous bug fixes and test rule enhancements for better testing contrast (filters, background images, and other complex color definitions are better handled), document language (IANA-defined language values are now tested), empty links and buttons (better ARIA support for accessible name computations), broken ARIA references, etc., etc. Performance and accessibility has been improved.Version 3.1.3 (November 2020) includes performance enhancements and fixes several minor bugs, including fixes for multiple alerts for some pseudo-lists and disabled controls being incorrectly flagged for contrast failures.Version 3.1.2 (October 2020) fixes several minor bugs, including with the Structure tab sometimes incorrectly showing no structure, and improves performance and accessibility testing reliability.Version 3.1 (September 2020) includes new accessibility tests (region, figure, possible list, select element missing label, and image with title), improved contrast checking, expanded lang attribute value checking, and numerous other bug fixes and improvements.Version 3.0.9 (July 2020) includes numerous bug fixes, improved accessibility, and improved color contrast checking including fewer false positives and expanded contrast checking for form inputs.

WAVE is a suite of evaluation tools that helps authors make their web content more accessible to individuals with disabilities. WAVE can identify many accessibility and Web Content Accessibility Guideline (WCAG) errors, but also facilitates human evaluation of web content.

This video provides a high-level orientation to WAVE by reviewing the findings for an example page (press release from NASA.gov). Captions are available and a transcript is provided following the video.

WAVE is a free web accessibility evaluation tool that identifies ways to make a webpage more accessible to people with disabilities. While it is true that WAVE can identify many accessibility errors automatically, a person must identify many accessibility issues manually. This is true for all web accessibility tools, but WAVE assists an evaluator by identifying and revealing many potential accessibility issues and features. WAVE is available at wave.webaim.org.

The category icons are color coded, and designed with other visual cues to be accessible to users who have difficulty distinguishing color. WAVE is also designed to be accessible to keyboard and screen reader users.

Finally, WAVE identifies where ARIA has been used, with purple icons. ARIA can be used to present important accessibility information to people with disabilities, but it must be used very carefully. Unfortunately, a website will be less accessible when ARIA is used incorrectly, and it is often used incorrectly.

The first ARIA icon is grayed out a bit, indicating that it relates to a part of the page that is hidden right now. Most pages have some content that is visually hidden. Also multiple WAVE icons that apply to the same element may overlap each other, or cover elements in the page. For example, the search field in the upper-right corner of the page is almost completely covered by three icons.

WAVE identifies any page elements that are hidden, lists the regions and headings in order, and indicates any nesting of page elements. Unfortunately, this page has issues in all three of these areas.

The area that contains the main navigation comes after the footer in the code, but it should be before it, nested within the header. And the heading structure shows that the main content comes after all the page regions, when it should be inside the main region.

The final panel is Contrast. The icons within this panel identify text that does not meet the WCAG Level AA contrast requirement of at least 4.5:1 WAVE also provides information for the lower 3:1 contrast requirement for large text.

For instance, if I open up the example page directly, a main site navigation element is loaded dynamically with JavaScript. Fortunately, WAVE can run directly in Chrome and Firefox through extensions developed for these browsers.

The WAVE extension can also be started with the keyboard shortcut Control + Shift + U on Windows, or Command + Shift + U on Mac. I now have access to everything that can be detected by WAVE, including the main navigation bar that was loaded dynamically with JavaScript. I also have the ability to evaluate password-protected or local pages.

1. Automated analysis: These tools perform an automated analysis of content, websites or apps to identify accessibility issues. They use algorithms and predefined rules to detect potential breaches of accessibility standards.

2. Standards compliance verification: Accessibility diagnostic tools assess whether the content complies with specific standards and guidelines, such as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). These tools can scan for elements that do not meet the criteria set out in the standards.

3. User experience simulation: Some tools can simulate different user experiences, such as navigating with a screen reader and navigating using only the keyboard instead of a mouse. They can also emulate different disability situations related to color contrast and color blindness.

4. Manual testing: Some tools may also include manual-guided testing options. This involves testers reviewing and testing the application to identify accessibility situations that may not be automatically detected.

5. Reports and recommendations: Accessibility diagnostic tools generate reports that summarize the issues found and provide recommendations on how to correct them. These reports can include detailed problem descriptions, their location within the page, and suggestions on how to fix them.

The tool can compare digital content with the accessibility guidelines stated in the WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines). The WCAG is a set of international standards and recommendations developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to promote web accessibility.

The WCAG are categorized into different compliance levels: A (the most basic level), AA (intermediate level) and AAA (the highest level). These guidelines establish a series of specific criteria and recommendations to make digital content accessible to a wide range of users. These include those with visual, auditory, cognitive, motor and other disabilities.

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