Windows Developer Power Tools

22.7 Checking Your Web Site’s Accessibility with WebXACT

Section 508 is the federal law that requires federal agencies to ensure that people with disabilities can access their information technology resources. From a web perspective, the requirements are based on the Web Accessibility Initiative guidelines developed by the W3C. If you are doing work for the federal government or for most states, the sites you are developing will have to be Section 508–compliant. While this is only law for federal agencies, more and more companies are striving to ensure that their sites are compliant.

Watchfire’s WebXACT is a free online service that can inspect your site and provide reports on validation, accessibility, and privacy.

WebXACT at a Glance
Tool	WebXACT
Version covered	0.7.2
Home page	http://webxact.watchfire.com
Power Tools page	http://www.windevpowertools.com/tools/118
Summary	Free online service primarily focused on accessibility. Also provides validation and privacy summaries.
License type	Freeware
Online resources	Online help
Related tools in this book	W3C Markup Validation Service, HTML Tidy

Getting Started

To use WebXACT, simply point your browser to http://webxact.watchfire.com, enter a valid URL, and press Go!

Using WebXACT

WebXACT’s main page is shown in Figure 22-29.

Figure 22-29. The WebXACT validation ...