Web Developer Info

The Web Developer Extension, created by Chris Pederick, is a very popular and useful resource for web designers. This section will specifically focus on the tools this extension provides that can help developers create more accessible web content.

Note

This extension is designed for Chrome, Firefox, and Opera web browser and will run on any platform that supports these browsers. When installed, it adds a configurable menu and toolbar to the browser with various tools to help web developers.

Using the Extension

Next, using your browser, make sure that you know how to find the Web Developer menu items or display the toolbar itself.

Now we'll explore some of the various tools in the toolbar that will be especially useful to those interested in creating accessible web content. Two of the menus, CSS and Forms, will not be discussed because they provide tools that focus more on general web development than they do access issues.

Disable

The options under this selection allow different items to be disabled in a web site. From an accessibility standpoint, the most important of these to take into consideration are the disabling of images, styles, page colors, and JavaScript.

Disabling images allows the web developer to view the alternative text for the images, in the context where the images are placed. Disabling styles allows developers to "see" how screen readers read the content aloud. Developers should pay attention to such things as the reading order and whether or not the lack of colors and placement affects the meaning of the content. Disabling the page colors creates a sort of high contrast version of the page, similar to the settings of some people with low vision, though some of these individuals prefer inverted color schemes with a dark background and light text.

Disabling JavaScript allows developers to determine whether the page is at least functional when JavaScript is turned off, as it is with some assistive technologies. In version 2.0 of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, JavaScript is allowed as long as it meets accessibility parameters (see JavaScript). The Section 508 guidelines take a similar stance. Version 1.0 of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines takes the stance that content should be accessible even when JavaScript is turned off.

Images

While images can be disabled using the Disable menu, the Images selection menu provides the opportunity to examine images in web content in more depth. This menu has options that can be selected to:

• Show what images in the web page have empty (or null) alt text.
• Show which images have no alt text at all.
• Replace images on the page with their alt text.