Metric: aXe Accessibility

Skill Level: Appropriate for all

The aXe accessibility metric scans your site using aXe-core, after JavaScript and CSS have been executed, and at a mobile browser width. The scan checks for a subset of WCAG 2.0 level AA accessibility violations. While aXe does a great job of identifying problems, only about 30% of accessibility issues found by automated tools, so a manual review is still required. Some examples of what requires a manual review include tab order, alternative text quality, semantic use of HTML elements and focus management for dynamic content.

It can be useful to run a live check on your page while fixing errors. Instead of running a new page scan, you can simply use the SiteMaster aXe bookmarklet to audit the page. Results of the audit will be displayed in your developer tools console, where you can select an error to inspect the related element on the page. The developer tools are also instrumental in identifying and fixing the accessibility problem (for example you can see where CSS styles came from and edit them on the fly).


Contributed By: IIM