Key takeaways
- Website accessibility is a fundamental right and a business risk: Ontario requires private companies with 50+ employees and all public organizations to meet the 2021 AODA requirements. The provincial aim targets complete accessibility by 2025.
- Use automated checkers to identify issues, but pair them with human evaluation.
- WAVE: browser extensions (Chrome, Firefox) that overlay pages with icons, list warnings/errors and facilitate human review. Also available via Pope Tech, Wave Runner, Wave Stand‑Alone API and Wave Subscription API for broader or automated scans.
- aXe: developer‑focused Chrome and Firefox extensions that add an “aXe” tab to Developer Tools, reporting frequency, HTML selectors, filters for review vs violations and guidance with links to offending code.
- A11Y Machine: crawls and tests pages, validates against W3C HTML5 and WCAG 2.0 (A/AA/AAA), can be installed locally so you don’t need to send your code offsite and produces detailed reports.
- SortSite: desktop or web app that scans (web test covers the first 10 pages), checks accessibility plus broken links, HTML, CSS, cross‑browser issues and SEO, reports show warnings/errors prioritized by impact and link to WCAG/Section 508 guidance for developers to act on it. IBM Accessibility Toolkit: page‑level testing in Chrome/Firefox, a rule engine to detect issues, modules/plugins for Karma and NodeJS and reporting tools for integrated testing workflows.
Introduction
“Disability is not the problem. Poor accessibility is.” – Anonymous
Even the top giants like Netflix, Amazon, Nike, Burger King have been sued over website accessibility.
More than a billion people live with some sort of disability.
These days, website accessibility is, undoubtedly, a basic human right.
That’s the reason it’s critical for businesses to take the much-needed steps to ensure ADA or AODA compliance, depending on what their base of operations is.
And as discussed in our previous blog post, the Government of Ontario has made it compulsory for private companies with 50 or more employees and all public organizations to meet the 2021 AODA compliance requirements.
This means if your business meets the criteria, yet your website isn’t AODA compliant, you’ll always be under the gun.
We don’t want your business to be hit with a digital accessibility lawsuit. That’s the reason we’ve put together a list of the five best website accessibility tools that’ll help you thoroughly evaluate your website’s accessibility and identify potential issues.
Let’s dive straight into it.
5 Website Accessibility Tools You Should Use to Ensure AODA Compliance
We’ve narrowed down our list to the following five website accessibility tools:
Let’s run down the benefits of each of these tools one at a time.
WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool
Developed by WebAIM, WAVE is one of the best suites of evaluation tools developed to help businesses make their content accessible to people with disabilities. Packed with various website accessibility checker tools, WAVE not only identifies accessibility and WCAG errors but also facilitates human evaluation.
So, to evaluate your website’s accessibility, you need to add in your web pages’ URLs, and as you do, you’ll be greeted with a pop-up that lists out warnings, errors, and accessibility features found on the page. On top of this, WAVE will also overlay the web page with icons to help you identify the errors easily.
Click HERE to download the Chrome extension, and HERE to download it on Mozilla. All you need to do is download the extension on the preferred browser and use it to run a quick website accessibility test.
However, if you are looking for something more automated and cover multiple sections of your website at once, you may tap into the power of:
aXe
As mentioned on their website, aXe is chosen by Google, Microsoft, and various other top giants, positioning this tool as the leading digital accessibility toolkit.
Similar to WAVE, you can download this tool’s Chrome & Firefox extensions. You’ll find these extensions to be more developer-focused. Upon launching the Developer tools in your preferred browser, you’ll witness a new tab, “aXe.”
aXe is hands-down one of the best tools for developers, as it lists out the maximum number of potential accessibility issues in an efficient manner. You can further filter these issues as issues needing review or clear violations.
For every issue that pops up, the report will display the frequency of its occurrence and also the HTML selector of the element. On top of this, you’ll also be provided with guidance on how to resolve the issue.
In short, the final output will be a list of different accessibility issues followed by a link that will take you to the code that caused them as well as recommendations for their fixes.
The A11Y Machine
A11Y will crawl and test your web pages and provide detailed reports. This automated accessibility testing tool will validate your web pages against W3C HTML5 Recommendation & W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 – (A, AA & AAA levels)
You can install this web accessibility tool locally. This way, you won’t have to send your code anywhere. You can easily test different areas of your website in an efficient manner.
Hop onto GitHub to unlock the full force of “The A11Y Machine.”
SortSite
Another easy website accessibility tool to use is SortSite. SortSite can easily be used as a desktop or web application to test a website’s accessibility. This tool will help you evaluate your website and test it for broken links, HTML, accessibility, CSS standards, cross-browser compatibility, and search engine optimization.
SortSite accessibility checker will review your web pages against WCAG 2.0 (A, AA, AAA).
You can easily scan the first ten pages of your website by hopping onto their website, typing in your website URL, and hitting the “Test Site button.”
And in no time, the platform will share the scan report with you.
The report will display warnings and errors and, at the same time, prioritize them based on their impact level. Also, this report will comprise direct links to WCAG & Section 508 Guidelines.
You can share this report with your developers or web designers, allowing them to map a course of action.
SortSite is one of the best website accessibility evaluation tools on the world wide web, and if a thorough analysis is something you desire, this tool is a must-have.
IBM Accessibility Toolkit
With this tool, you can easily tackle complete page-level testing on your Firefox and Chrome browsers. Their website accessibility toolkit taps into the power of IBM’s rule engine to detect potential website accessibility issues.
Also, it’s a perfect option for teams seeking integrated accessibility testing. That’s because IBM offers modules and plug-ins for Karma and NodeJS as well.
Also, they have reporting tools that you can use to record and review detailed reports.
Is Your Website AODA Compliant?
The Government of Ontario’s primary aim is to ensure complete accessibility to people with disabilities by 2025. And it’s our responsibility to build a future without any limitations.
With these tools in your arsenal, you can evaluate your website accessibility in a smart and efficient manner.
So, what are you waiting for?
Let’s remove the barricades together.
FAQ
WAVE, aXe, The A11Y Machine, SortSite and the IBM Accessibility Toolkit are tools to evaluate website accessibility for AODA compliance.
Install the WAVE browser extension for Chrome or Firefox, open a page and WAVE will display a pop‑up listing warnings, errors and accessibility features while overlaying the page with icons to identify issues for human review.
aXe integrates into browser Developer Tools with an “aXe” tab, is developer‑focused, lists many potential issues efficiently, lets you filter review items versus clear violations, shows occurrence frequency and the HTML selector and provides guidance and links to the code causing each issue.
The A11Y Machine crawls and tests pages, validates pages against the W3C HTML5 Recommendation and WCAG 2.0 (A, AA & AAA), produces detailed reports and can be installed locally so you don’t have to send your code offsite.
Enter your site URL on SortSite’s website and run the web test to scan the first ten pages. The report lists warnings and errors, prioritizes them by impact and includes direct links to WCAG and Section 508 guidelines you can share with developers or designers.
IBM’s toolkit supports page‑level testing in Chrome and Firefox using an IBM rule engine to detect issues, and offers modules and plug‑ins for Karma and NodeJS plus reporting tools for recording and reviewing detailed reports, making it suitable for integrated testing workflows.
The Government of Ontario requires private companies with 50 or more employees and all public organizations to meet the 2021 AODA compliance requirements. The government’s primary aim is full accessibility by 2025.
