Simple testing before you buy

This is a companion for the web page Guidelines for Purchasers and focuses on how to do a simple evaluation of software accessibility.

Put Away Your Mouse—navigate with a keyboard only

Using just the tab, arrows, space bar, and return/enter keys, can you get to the important parts of a page like a menu and any dropdowns? What about buttons or the search field on the page?

As you are using the keyboard to navigate through the page, do you see any “focus indicators” letting you know where you are on the page? A focus indicator is a visual marker that shows you what element on a page has focus; it should be very obvious.

Brief instructions on how to navigate without using a mouse or trackpad.

Run a Lighthouse Report

Lighthouse is an open-source, automated tool for improving the quality of web pages. Install the Lighthouse browser extension and run a report.

Use High Contrast

Turn on high contrast mode to see if the page is legible for users with visual impairments.

High Contrast for Mac

Open System Settings
Go to Accessibility
Select Display from the list of options under Vision. On the resulting page, toggle Increase contrast to on (blue).
This will reduce transparency in windows and make the borders of buttons, tabs, and other items more legible. If increasing the contrast is too stark a change for you, try selecting the setting right below it to Reduce transparency. This will make the semi-transparent headers of windows a solid gray.

High Contrast for Windows

Press the Windows logo key + U to open Accessibility settings, then select Contrast Themes.
Windows 11 offers 4 contrast themes: Aquatic, Desert, Dusk, and Night Sky. They can each be previewed on this page.
Each theme can be selected from the drop-down menu. Select Apply to test it out.

Turn Off Images

Without any images, can you still figure out what to do? Can you still understand what is happening and what you need to do?

One way to do this:

Change the settings of Chrome. Other browsers have similar options

Check for captions or transcripts

What happens if you turn off sound for videos or audio files? How can you figure out what is going on? Is there a way to read captions? Are transcripts available?