Accessibility Self-Audit Training Sessions

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Accessibility Self Audit Training Sessions

Overview

Introduction

The City of New York must publish a report on web accessibility every two years. This is required by Local Law 26 of 2016. You can check out the 2017 and 2019 reports on the MOPD Reports and Publications page.

MOPD and DoITT have put together a training for agency IT professionals, developers, web managers, etc. The training is meant to assist NYC agency professionals in auditing their own websites for accessibility. It has seven sessions that cover 52 web accessibility standards. There are also a few follow up review sessions.

Each session is one to two hours long. We recommend that you set aside three to four hours for each session, plus additional time for the homework, and complete the course over a period of 21 weeks to properly digest the content. That is one session every three weeks.

There is a page for each session. It has instructions, resources, and videos to go along with each lesson.

Each lesson contains between five and fourteen of the 52 WCAG criteria. The lessons will teach you what they mean and how to figure out if you are complying with them.

Preparing for the Sessions

WCAG Standards

There are a few things that you will need to get started with this course. The first is to become familiar with the standards. Checkout WCAG 2.1 at a Glance as a quick overview. WebAIM is also a website with a lot of helpful guidance on the standards.

Download the Spreadsheet

We created a spreadsheet for measuring website accessibility. It is what will be used in this training. You will need to use it to record the results of your evaluation of each criterion for the pages you are auditing. Filling in the proper info, as indicated throughout the trainings, is required to get your accessibility score at the end.
Download the Spreadsheet

There are 52 WCAG success criteria that we will test. In the survey spreadsheet, each checklist item is measured and given a score between 0 and 1. For example, “1.1.1 Non-Text Content” pertains to the images, data visualizations, maps, and CATCHAs that appear on a page. To measure, all images on a page are counted, then the number of instances of alt-text for each image is counted. A percentage is then calculated from those figures. For example, if there are six images and six alt-texts, then the score would be 1. If there are six images and only three alt-texts, the score would be 0.5. Maps, data visualizations, and CAPTCHAs are evaluated separately, and an average is the calculated to give the final score for this criterion.

Some checklist items are given either a 0 or 1 score, instead of a percentage. For example, checklist item “2.1.2 No Keyboard Traps” is not useful to count, it either exists on the page or does not. Therefore, it receives a score of 0 or 1.

In other cases, scores are rounded to the nearest quarter because of ambiguity. For example, the checklist item “1.3.1 Info and Relationships” pertains to proper syntax and heading structures. Since a heading structure that is not proper can still be useful, scores such as 0, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, and 1 are given to pages regarding this criteria.

Some checklist items are not applicable for all pages. For example, checklist item “1.2.1 Audio-Only and Video-Only (Pre-Recorded)” is not applicable if the page does not have media such as a video or podcast. When a checklist item is not applicable, it will not be counted towards the overall page score. This is done by putting “N/A” in the score field for that criterion.

If you get stuck on a specific criterion, checkout the Info tab on the spreadsheet for extra guidance.

Download a Screen Reader

Familiarize yourself with some of the testing tools we will be using. Please download a screen reader or become familiar with your OS’s built-in screen reader before the training. For Windows, we recommend JAWS or NVDA. For Mac, the built-in screen reader, Voiceover, is recommended.
Download our Screen Reader Testing Guide

Automated Testing Tools

Some WCAG criterion can be tested using automated tools. The tools are webpages where you can paste a URL. You can also download a browser extension for some of them. Below are some that we recommend.

Choosing Websites

Since agencies tend to have multiple websites that have dozens of pages, we recommend that you choose one to three websites for your audit. Within each website, there are many pages. We also recommend choosing a sample set of pages. Below is more guidance on how to choose websites and pages.

Which websites should I audit?

  • Prioritize public facing websites
  • Websites that have high traffic
  • Websites that have information or services specifically for people with disabilities
  • Websites that will still be live during July 2021 and beyond

Which pages should I include in my sample?

  • Home page
  • About page
  • Contact page
  • Pages with accessibility or disability info
  • Pages with complex content such as videos, forms, maps, data visualizations etc.
  • Choose 5-7 pages that provide a good sampling of the types of content on the website

Contact and Feedback

If you’d like to learn more about this training, share feedback, or ask questions, please contact Walei Sabry at wsabry@doitt.nyc.gov or Shawna Rice at srice@doitt.nyc.gov.