About Automated Testing Tools
The following automated accessibility testing tools are available for developers and designers. These tools can test up against 30% of the WCAG success criteria so cannot be relied on for full validation of a site or for general usability testing. Developers and designers should become familiar with manual testing procedures as part of overall testing. A range of options have been provided where possible to give individual developers and designers the ability to pick their preferred testing tool.
Code Review Browser Plug-ins
The following browser plug-ins will open a side-by-side panel or provide information through browser dev panels to review issues that can be identified by automated testing:
Color Contrast Checkers
These checkers allow designers and developers to talk a look whether two colors used together will cause contrast issues. For example, they allow you to check if your color selection for the text of a button along with the color of the button inactive button and the color of the active button when focused pass color contrast guidelines.
Photosensitive Epilepsy Analysis Tool (PEAT)
The Trace Center’s Photosensitive Epilepsy Analysis Tool (PEAT) is a free, downloadable resource for developers to identify seizure risks in their web content and software. The evaluation used by PEAT is based on an analysis engine developed specifically for web and computer applications.
PEAT can help authors determine whether animations or video in their content are likely to cause seizures. Not all content needs to be evaluated by PEAT, but content that contains video or animation should be evaluated, especially if that content contains flashing or rapid transitions between light and dark background colors.