Tools

Digital accessibility tools.

Authoring Anchor link

• A11yFirst for CKEditor - Accessibility First on GitHub
  Series of plugins for supporting a11y best practices within the WYSIWYG editor, CKEditor.
• Sa11y, the accessibility quality assurance assistant
  An in-page accessibility checker that visually highlights common accessibility and usability issues. Geared towards content authors, Sa11y straightforwardly identifies errors or warnings at the source with a simple tooltip on how to fix them. Available as a JavaScript plugin, bookmarklet, and WordPress plugin.
• Editoria11y - Editoria11y was initially built on Sa11y and highlights common issues inline with the
  content editor. Presently there is a Drupal module that leverages CKEditor, but they are working on a WordPress module too.
• retextjs: retext-readability plugin
  A plugin for retext that scans text content for readability (defaults to age 16 reading level, but is configurable) and warns developers of issues.
• retextjs: retext-equality plugin
  Another plugin for retext that checks text content for possible insensitive, inconsiderate language.
• Zettlr: Markdown Editor - Zettlr on GitHub
  Open source Markdown editor that simplifies the content creation experience by avoiding the clutter seen in many common word processing solutions.
• Drupal is a very accessible CMS and these modules can enhance its accessibility
• ATOM Plugin - web-accessibility-checker package An accessibility
  Plugin for the popular open source ATOM Editor from GitHub.

Assistive technology Anchor link

• NVDA - NVDA on GitHub
  Available for PCs running Microsoft Windows 7 SP1 and later, NVDA is a fast, functional, and free screen reader.
• ChromeVox Chrome Extension - ChromeVox as part of ChromeOS on GitHub - Install and Setup Instructions from Web Accessibility for Developers Guide (with video)
  A fully featured screen reader for the web built using only web technologies such as HTML and Javascript. This extension specifically works within the Chrome browser to read content aloud.
• Android Talkback & Switch - on GitHub
  TalkBack is the Google screen reader included on Android devices. Switch lets you interact with your Android device using one or more switches instead of the touchscreen, useful if you can't interact directly with your device.
• Apple VoiceOver
  While not open source, VoiceOver is an industry‑leading screen reader for Apple products, which also gives descriptions in braille.
• Linux Orca - Orca on GitLab - Orca on Chrome/Chromium
  Orca is a free, open source, flexible, and extensible screen reader that provides access to the graphical desktop via speech and refreshable braille.
• SkipTo Landmarks & Headings on GitHub based on PayPal's skipto HTML project SkipTo provides a browser extension that provides keyboard only user more navigational control.

Site-wide evaluation Anchor link

• bbc-a11y on GitHub
  Highly-configurable bbc-a11y runs a set of tests against a set of URLs to verify whether each one meets the BBC accessibility guidelines.
• Domain Accessibility Audit by MSU College of Natural Science on GitHub
  This web application automatically crawls websites, checks for accessibility violations, and is based on axe.
• GOV.UK Accessibility Reports on GitHub
  A collection of reporting tools that run on Amazon's S3 infrastructure. Geared to crawl a large number of webpages, like Gov.uk.
• Pa11y - Pa11y on GitHub
  A popular command-line interface which loads web pages and highlights any accessibility issues it finds. The Pa11y family of applications includes a Dashboard for monitoring several projects' a11y issues, as well as continuous integration (CI) abilities.
• Purple A11y by Government Digital Services, Singapore and Purple A11y Desktop on GitHub
  Powered by axe, Purple A11y (previously Purple Hats) is a customisable, automated accessibility testing tool.
• Unlighthouse on Unlighthouse on GitHub, helps you crawl your site with Google Lighthouse.

Page level evaluation Anchor link

• A11ygator - A11ygator on GitHub
  An application and Twitter bot that quickly tests single pages against WCAG.
• Accessibility Insights by Microsoft - Accessibility Insights GitHub Page
  Feature-rich testing suite for reviewing/auditing a11y on web sites, Android apps and Windows apps.
• Accessibility Toolbar Plugin - ACC Toolbar on GitHub
  A component you can add to your site which adds tools that give people with vision disabilities a way to change text size, contrast level, etc…
• axe by Deque - axe GitHub Page
  A leading testing toolkit that powers many other projects and offers different levels of usage, through browser extension tests or within continuous
  integration via their API.
• bbc-a11y on GitHub
  This tool runs a set of tests against a set of URLs to verify whether each one meets the BBC accessibility guidelines. Can be run from the command line and added to continuous integration pipelines.
• Google Lighthouse - Lighthouse on GitHub
  Extremely flexible and popular testing suite from Google that can be run directly on pages, from the command line, or as a Node module.
• IBM Equal Access Toolkit - equal-access on GitHub
  Tools from IBM that can automate accessibility testing from a browser, or when added to a continuous integration environment.
• Explore ARIA Landmarks Browser Extension - Landmarks on GitHub
  Browser extension that allows you to navigate a web page via WAI-ARIA landmarks, using the keyboard or a pop-up menu.
• Firefox AInspector WCAG - A Firefox Add-on that addresses accessibility compliance
  using OpenAjax Alliance rulesets.
• Qualweb - Qualweb on GitHub - A set of tools that are being built to align with the W3C's ACT ruleset.

Bookmarklets Anchor link

• ANDI by SSA.gov - ANDI on GitHub
  A free accessibility testing tool that offers detection of problems and shows what a screen reader should say for interactive elements. It also gives realistic recommendations to improve accessibility, and checks 508 compliance.
• Touch Bookmarklet - Touch on GitHub
  Simulate touch events (swipe, rotate, pinch) with a mouse.
• Outline ⭐️ Bookmarklet on Codepen (MIT Licence)
  On click, every focusable element will receive a red border, so you can see where the keyboard cursor is.
• What has focus? on Codepen (MIT Licence)
  When something receives keyboard focus via Tab key, the current element will be logged to the JavaScript console so you can determine which element currently has focus.
• Reading Order Bookmarklet
  Running this bookmarklet will visually number the reading order in which screen-reading software will announce different parts of the page, to check to see that it matches the visual order (up to down, left to right).
• Accessibility and Contrast Bookmarklet - Contrast Bookmarklet on GitHub
  Analyse the contrast of the text on a page and highlight elements which may have readability issues.
• WAI-ARIA-Usage by The Paciello Group
  Evaluate WAI-ARIA according to the ARIA in HTML specification.
• Paul Adam's Collection of JavaScript Bookmarklets for Accessibility Testing

Color Anchor link

Web based contrast tools Anchor link

• Contrast Finder by Tanaguru - Contrast Finder GitHub Page
• Contrast-Ratio.com - Contrast-Ratio GitHub Page
  Allows for testing of contrast of text on top of a semi transparent background.
• Contrast Checker
• ButtonBuddy - ButtonBuddy on GitHub
• ACD (Previously ColorCube) - ColorCube on GitHub
• LeonardoColor.io - Leonardo on GitHub
• Colour Contrast Checker - Colour Contrast Checker on GitHub
• Who Can Use - Who Can Use on GitHub
• Colour Contrast Analyser (CCA) by TPGi - CCA on GitHub

Creating color palettes Anchor link

• Accessible color palette builder - Accessible Color Palette on GitHub
• Contrast Grid - Contrast Grid on GitHub

Color browser plugins and apps Anchor link

• Colour Contrast Analyser (CCA) by TPG - CCAe on GitHub
• Eye Dropper Chrome Extension - Eye Dropper on GitHub Determine the contrast ratio of two colors using an eyedrop tool on Windows and Mac.
• Pika MacOS Color Picker - Pika on GitHub
  Open-source, native colour picker for macOS.

Color integrations for design tools Anchor link

• Color Contrast Analyser for Sketch on GitHub
  Sketch plugin that calculates the color contrast of two layers and evaluates it against the WCAG.

Design tool accessibility integrations Anchor link

Figma Anchor link

• Accessibility Annotation Kit - a community plugin for
  Figma that helps designers document accessibility considerations to share with developers when handing off designs.
• Accessibility Checklist for Designers - a checklist was created on the base of WCAG 2.1 AA standards.
• Inclusive Design illustrations - character stickersheets and illustrations from Microsoft Inclusive Design's toolkit.
• Intopia's accessibility annotation kit - communicate your accessibility requirements to developers and testers.
• A11y Annotation Kit - document accessibility considerations to share with developers when handing off designs.
• Twitter's Accessibility Annotation Library - efficient, and scalable way for designers to communicate needs to engineers.

Sketch Anchor link

• Sketch Accessibility Assistant - a linter for compliant color contrast and type based on WCAG 2.1.
• Sketch cluse.cc or cluse on GitHub - Sketch Plugin to check and adjust color contrast accessibility

Storybook Anchor link

• storybook-addon-a11y or Addon A11y on GitHub - a Storybook addon which uses axe to improve the accessibility of UI components.
• storybook-a11y-report or A11y Report on GitHub - crawl Storybook pages and produce a report
• Aria Live or Addon Aria Live on GitHub - an utility tool for inspecting announcements of ARIA live regions

Automated testing & continuous integration Anchor link

• Cypress-axe
  Testing with Cypress on GitHub
• Jest-axe
  Testing with Jest on GitHub
• Nightwatch aXe-core
  Testing with Nightwatch on GitHub

Simulators & building empathy Anchor link

• Metamatrix Web Disability Simulator Chrome Extension on Metamatrix on GitHub
  Simulates color blindness, low vision, dyslexia and more.
• Funkify Chrome Extension
  Not open source, but a free version is available which simulates dyslexia and cognitive/motor/vision conditions.
• Sim Daltonism - sim-daltonism on GitHub
  iOS/Mac app that lets you visualize colors as they are perceived with various types of color blindness.
• A11Y: Color blindness empathy test on GitHub Chrome/Firefox extension and a web-based tool created to help designers and developers better understand color blindness and visual imparity.
• Color Oracle - Oracle-Mac on GitHub & Oracle-Windows on GitHub
  Color blindness simulator for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

EPUB3 Anchor link

• EPUBCheck
• Ace, by DAISY

PDFs Anchor link

Accessibility checkers Anchor link

• PAC 3
• PAVE
• VeraPDF
• simplA11yPDFCrawler

Parsing/manipulating PDFs (not a11y-focused) Anchor link

• PDF Parser

Other lists of tools Anchor link

• Donna Bungard's An Incomplete List of Tools for Accessibility Google spreadsheet tracking the feature sets and various aspects of several popular tools.
• Paul J Adam's Resources List
• Accessibility Lists of Lists
• Web Accessibility Evaluation Tools List

Videos Anchor link

• WebAim's WAVE
  Introduction to the WAVE Toolbar.
• Microsoft's Accessibility Insights
  Introductory Videos about use of Accessibility Insights.
• Deque's Axe
  Get started with using axe.