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I'm blind and I should do some tests about accessibility and usability on different web sites so, how can I do the tests correctly?

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We need more information to answer this question properly. Are you being asked to test a given site as a blind person, or are you testing a site for other blind people, using other blind people (not including yourself) as test subjects? – Rachel Keslensky Dec 6 '12 at 18:58
@rachel I would do a complete test not only for the blind, I know that the accessibility and usability aren't only focused on help blind peole! – Filippo1980 Dec 7 '12 at 19:46

closed as not a real question by Ben Brocka♦ Feb 4 at 17:42

It's difficult to tell what is being asked here. This question is ambiguous, vague, incomplete, overly broad, or rhetorical and cannot be reasonably answered in its current form. For help clarifying this question so that it can be reopened, see the FAQ.

2 Answers

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Well depending on the type of website you are testing, I would come up with a bunch of baseline accessibility use cases that most modern websites should cater too. Stuff like font sizing, contrast, alt tags, text as images etc..

A good guideline can be found here: http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/wcag.php

From my experience, most websites should now be WCAG 2.0 Level 1 or Level 2 compliant. These guidelines cover alot of different types of disabilities and how websites should cater to these. Stuff like blindness, low vision, cognitive disabilities etc..

To actually run the tests you would probably need to get your hands on Accessible software for your computer like:

  1. Jaws Screen Reader
  2. ZoomText
  3. WAVE Toolbar

Some of these cost money, I'm not sure if you have a budget or money to spend. The WAVE toolbar is a great place to start, run it on any webpage and it will give you a report of what the page needs to be accessible friendly. WAVE is free.

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thank you, as I said I'm blind so I already a screen reader (NVDA because it is opensource and works very well like JAWS) I can't use Zoom Text but thank you for the link to Wave Toolbar and for the link to w3c! – Filippo1980 Dec 12 '12 at 13:45
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I would suggest using Web Accessibility Toolbar (WAT) for web content inspection, Java Ferret for Java applications, and Microsoft Windows Object Inspector (a.k.a. Inpect32) which is now in the Windows SDK for embedded web page software or software applications on MS Windows platform. All of these tools are "visual inspection tools" but are accessible and work well with most assistive technologies. They are a part of the standards-based review for Section 508 that agencies use, today.

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@norman-b-robins0n : thank you for your answer! – Filippo1980 Feb 5 at 17:55

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