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Accessibility Validation Dialog Box

  • Article

The Accessibility Validation dialog box enables you to check that the markup in your Web page meets basic accessibility standards and is usable by people with disabilities. Accessibility standards also promote usability for all users, including those who might be working with temporary constraints, such as a loud environment, a room that is too dim or too bright, and so on.

Note

Validation tests only the markup on your page. It does not test any ASP.NET or third party controls. It does not check any script on the Web page.

To perform an accessibility check, click the Validate button inthe Accessibility Validation dialog box. If the page includes markup that does not pass validation, errors are displayed in the Error List.

Note

The Accessibility Validation dialog box is not available in Visual Web Developer Express Edition.

To open the Accessibility Validation dialog box

  • In Visual Studio, in the Tools menu, click Check Accessibility.

    The Accessibility Validation dialog box is displayed.

Tasks

UI Elements

The following check boxes are listed in the Accessibility Validation dialog box.

  • WCAG Priority 1
    Performs a check as specified in version 2.0 of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), which is published as a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommendation. For details, see the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 on the W3C Web site.

    The Web page must meet all of the WCAG Priority 1 requirements for accessibility. These requirements define functionality that is required; otherwise, some users will not be able to work with the page at all.

  • WCAG Priority 2
    Performs a check as specified in WCAG 2.0, which is published as a W3C recommendation. For details, see the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 on the W3C Web site.

    The Web site should meet all of the WCAG Priority 2 requirements for accessibility. These requirements define functionality that is recommended; otherwise, some users will have difficulty working with the page.

  • Access Board Section 508
    Specifies that the Web page must meet all the standards established in Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, as defined by the federal government of the United States. For details, see the Web-based Intranet and Internet Information and Applications section of the "Guide to the Section 508 Standards for Electronic Information and Technology," which is published on the United States Access Board's Web site.

  • Errors
    Displays all errors in the Error List.

  • Warnings
    Displays all warnings in the Error List. If this check box is cleared, warnings are ignored.

  • Manual checklist
    Creates a checklist that you can use while addressing the issues in the accessibility validation report. The validation utility does not test for every guideline. This checklist lists those items that require manual testing.

Guidelines

The validation performed by the accessibility validation tool treats the WCAG Priority 1 guidelines as a subset of the Access Board Section 508 guidelines. If you select the Access Board Section 508 check box, the WCAG Priority 1 check box is automatically selected and cannot be unselected. If you run validation against the Access Board Section 508 guidelines, the items that fail against the WCAG Priority 1 subset appear in the task list as WCAG 1.1 errors or warnings. Therefore, the complete list of Access Board Section 508 errors and warnings consists of both the Access Board Section 508 items and the WCAG Priority 1 items.

See Also

Tasks

Walkthrough: Creating an Accessible Web Application