TrustRadius: an HG Insights company

WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool

Score5 out of 10

5 Reviews and Ratings

Get a Demo

What is WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool?

WAVE is a suite of evaluation tools that helps authors make their web content more accessible to individuals with disabilities. WAVE can identify many accessibility and Web Content Accessibility Guideline (WCAG) errors, but also facilitates human evaluation of web content. The vendor, WebAIM who offers WAVE as a free suite of tools, states their philosophy is to focus on issues that they know impact end users, facilitate human evaluation, and to educate about web accessibility.

The online WAVE tool can be used by entering a web page address (URL) in the field above. WAVE Chrome, Firefox, and Edge browser extensions are available for testing accessibility directly within a web browser - handy for checking password protected, locally stored, or highly dynamic pages. They also have a Accessibility IMpact (AIM) service, subscription WAVE API, and a stand-alone WAVE API and testing engine for collecting data on many pages. For enterprise-level reporting and tracking of accessibility, WAVE powers the Pope Tech accessibility tool.

The WAVE Browser Extension
The WAVE Chrome, Firefox, and Edge extensions allows users to evaluate web content for accessibility issues directly within a browser. Because the extension runs entirely within a web browser, no information is sent to the WAVE server. This ensures 100% private and secure accessibility reporting. The extension can check intranet, password-protected, dynamically generated, or sensitive web pages. Also, because the WAVE extension evaluates the rendered version of your page, locally displayed styles and dynamically-generated content from scripts or AJAX can be evaluated.

The WAVE API
The WAVE API allows automated and remote accessibility analysis of web pages using the WAVE processing engine. Users send the URL or content of the page to be analyzed, and WAVE sends back useful data about how accessible it is. The API engine evaluates the user's web page after CSS and JavaScript has been applied resulting in a very accurate evaluation of end user accessibility.

The would-be user registers for a new API key and can purchase WAVE API credits. All new accounts get 100 free credits. Additional credits are available for as little as $.025 each. The more purchased, the less expensive credits become. For those with APIs, the user performs a simple GET request that contains an API key and the URL of the page to check, and WAVE sendS back results data in either JSON or XML format. It can be customized to get more or less data.

Pope Tech - Powered by WAVE
Pope Tech is an enterprise-level web accessibility evaluation system based on WAVE. This tool helps organizations large and small significantly improve their web site accessibility for people with disabilities by providing monitoring and reporting of accessibility over time.

Categories & Use Cases

Key Features

Learn about the best (and worst!) features WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool has to offer, as determined by TrustRadius' reviewers.
Based on 5 ratings of WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool's features
View all features

Top Performing Features

  • Issue Ranking

    High-priority issues like navigability or legal liability are identified and prioritized over lower-impact issues. Priority rankings may vary based on the type of site or asset.

    Category average: 8.1

  • Accessibility Scanning and Assessment

    The product scans and detects accessibility issues against guidelines and standards such as WCAG, and makes appropriate recommendations for fixing them.

    Category average: 6.7

  • HTML and CSS scanning

    The product can audit HTML and CSS for accessibility.

    Category average: 7.5

Areas for Improvement

  • Color/Contrast Analysis

    The product detects low-contrast or colorblind-unfriendly color schemes and recommends alternative colors.

    Category average: 6.2

  • Manual Auditing Services

    Accessibility experts are available to provide customized guidance, auditing, and assistance.

    Category average: 5.7

  • Compliance Reporting and Tracking

    The product provides dashboards, tracking, and reporting to measure current and/or historical compliance metrics.

    Category average: 4.2

Reviews

What users are saying about WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool.
View all reviews

Simple to understand interface makes this a great tool for entry level through experienced testers!

Incentivized
Lainie StrangeView profile
Web Accessibility Specialist/Developer in Quality Assurance at State of Missouri (501-1000 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I am the lead web accessibility specialist for the state. This tool was the first automated plugin I ever used during accessibility testing. I use this to spot-check specific web pages as well as automated testing for smaller-scale sites. I also strongly encourage any of our testers to use this as the automated testing component of their testing process.

Pros

  • Creates a great visual display of where the error is located, both in HTML source and page view.
  • An excellent option in the contrast checker is to select the color slider to locate a color that will pass accessible.
  • Clearly displays the alt text of images to check that it makes sense and is accurate
  • Great at indicating if an error is visually hidden but in the code.
  • Clean, organized, easy-to-understand details report

Cons

  • Have it check for ARIA errors
  • Indicate whether errors are A, AA, etc.
  • Have the ability to set the accessibility standard level
  • Quick export of report

Most Important Features

  • Simple, easy to understand interface so staff pick up on it quickly.
  • Quickly figure out correct color to use for contrast issues via the color slider
  • The carefully planned interface makes it great to do screenshots to share with someone to let them know where the error is
  • It's great at explaining what the error is and what it means.

Return on Investment

  • It is an excellent testing tool for our web applications.
  • The fact it is free gives the freedom for anyone to use it at any time without needing to budget a tool.
  • It is a longstanding, trustworthy product.

Alternatives Considered

Siteimprove

Other Software Used

Siteimprove, Basecamp, Webex App

It gets the job done

Verified User
Employee in Information Technology (1001-5000 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use this for very basic accessibility testing for our websites and applications and is by no means a comprehensive breakdown of the state of accessibility.

Pros

  • Identifies contrast errors
  • Identifies skipped headings
  • locates hidden or empty containers

Cons

  • It uses pt VS px. Nobody outside of print is using pt
  • It has some tools and they are incomplete at best
  • misidentifies inputs as needing labels (like a submit which does not require a label)

Return on Investment

  • It's free, so it certainly does help
  • It gets the low hanging fruit quickly

WAVE helping make websites accessible

Incentivized
Verified User
Employee in Social Media (51-200 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

It addressed accessibility concerns on our website and let us know what we needed to fix in terms of things like alternative text, color, contrast. It helped us look at our website as a whole and go one by one through sections. It was very easy to run the report and discover.

Pros

  • Provides report of errors for you
  • Explains what needs to be fixed so you know why
  • Shows the errors next to each item on your website so you can see which one they mean

Cons

  • Help provide you to resources to fix your website
  • Have the website look a little more detailed, it is very plain
  • Have people that work to help you make changes to your website

Most Important Features

  • The summary
  • The details where it outlines errors
  • Conrast

Return on Investment

  • It has led us to be more inclusive and accessible in our website
  • We have more website visitors
  • We have had positive comments about our website in terms of being accessible

Alternatives Considered

UserWay and accessiBe

Excellent, Free Resource for Basic Accessibility Checking

Incentivized
Verified User
Director in Marketing (501-1000 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I routinely use the WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool browser extension to check accessibility for web pages and web content. I primarily use it to give vendors a clear and understandable way to see the accessibility errors in their websites as well as in content they want us to embed on our websites. The tool helps us keep our partners meeting at least the bare minimum for accessibility.

Pros

  • Easy to use
  • Easy to read and understand
  • Free to use, leaving even stubborn vendors without a reason to refuse.

Cons

  • Sometimes the automated functions miss things or are mis-triggered
  • I would like it to link out to more in-depth reading on issues and resolving them
  • I would love it if it generated a PDF report to send people.

Most Important Features

  • Hosted online so I can send it, or an analyzed page to anyone
  • Free
  • Easy for anyone else to pick up and check things prior to sending on
  • Catches all of the basic issues
  • Gives basic explanations that help teach the fundamentals

Return on Investment

  • Boosted accessibility on pages and page content across our websites
  • Allowed us to easily audit content hosted by others
  • Given us a method of requiring partners/vendors to meet basic accessibility standards.

Alternatives Considered

Siteimprove, axe DevTools from Deque and Accessibility Checker

Other Software Used

Siteimprove, WP Engine, Sprout Social