RE: automated wcag validation rules

For the past three years a group including myself have been working on the OpenAjax Accessibility Evaluation library (i.e. a Javascript library that operates on the DOM for evaluating accessibility) and I think the idea of a single set of requirements for WCAG would be a difficult task.  In our work on the library and open source tools that use them, the community we work with has identified 2 main rulesets for WCAG 2.0 Level A and AA conformance.   One for HTML4 based legacy techniques and another for HTML5+ARIA techniques.   What you are really validating are techniques used to implement accessibility requirements.  In our work with people using the tools is that some rules are “required” and others are “recommended”.  The rules mapping to required or recommended can change between the two rulesets.

OpenAjax Evaluation Library Rulesets and Rules
http://fae20.cita.illinois.edu/rulesets/


OpenAjax Evaluation Library Source Code
http://www.openajax.org/member/wiki/Accessibility_OAA_Library_Downloads


Functional Access Evaluator
http://fae20.cita.illinois.edu


AInspector Sidebar for Firefox
http://ainspector.github.io/


Jon


From: Andrew Kirkpatrick [mailto:akirkpat@adobe.com]
Sent: Wednesday, March 18, 2015 7:12 AM
To: Steve Faulkner; w3c-wai-gl@w3.org; Richard Schwerdtfeger
Subject: RE: automated wcag validation rules

In terms of people looking into this there’s the Automated WCAG Monitoring Community Group: https://www.w3.org/community/auto-wcag/


From: Steve Faulkner [mailto:faulkner.steve@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, March 18, 2015 8:03 AM
To: w3c-wai-gl@w3.org<mailto:w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>; Richard Schwerdtfeger
Subject: automated wcag validation rules

Hi all,
had a brief discussion with Rich s about a minumum set of automated conformance criteria
Problem: many automated tools claim to test wcag criteria, but there is no standardized set (to my knowledge) of conformance criteria rules that can be checked using automated software. This has lead to a range of tools claiming to test WCAG conformance when in fact some requirements are out of step/incorrect.
Has there been any work/discussion on producing a standardized set of machine testable wcag2 conformance criteria that any tool claiming to be testing wcag conformance can be tested against?
--

Regards

SteveF
HTML 5.1<http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/>