Re: Selecting Web Accessibility Evaluation Tools- Issue 1

Judy / Shadi and all,
I am sending 3-4 mails each addressing a different issue. They are issues I am concerned about and believe should be suitably addressed in the doc.
Tool Categories: 
In my opinion, "Tools that help determine if a Web site is accessible" includes   "accessibility evaluation tools". The latter are just one of the types of tools that can be used to evaluate accessibility".    

Also included  in this group are: 
- assistive technology tools which can be used to test Web content. These are primarily AT and not evaluation tools per se. Accessibility issues observed during such testing might also be  due to weaknesses in the testing / AT tool. 
- accessibility features of the OS. These are primarily features incorporated to aid PWD to access computers.  
- tools which expect the user to make an assessment about accessibility of Web content based on the rendering of the content by the tool. eg. color contrast checker etc.

The title  of this doc refers to just one type of tools namely, "Web accessibility evaluation tool" and not the broader group.

Shadi writes:
"While I agree with you that automation is a very important aspect to
look at while selecting evaluation tools, I ask myself what do we do
with checkpoints that are not (yet) automatable by machines? Do we not want to help developers find appropriate tools to assist the manual
evaluations they have to carry out anyway?"
Sailesh:
Sure, then title the doc to incorporate this objective. The doc with its present title does not justify this content.

Sailesh Panchang
Senior Accessibility Engineer 
Deque Systems,11180  Sunrise Valley Drive, 
4th Floor, Reston VA 20191
Tel: 703-225-0380 Extension 105 
E-mail: sailesh.panchang@deque.com
Fax: 703-225-0387
* Look up <http://www.deque.com> *