We've found the best results when using either the PopeTech Accessibility Guide or the WAVE browser tool in conjunction with the Canvas Accessibility Checker (affectionately known as "the little man").
Like any tool, these:
work when used correctly,
can create problems if used incorrectly, and
don't cover everything you'll need to check for in your pages.
Your content will still need human eyes to ensure you've located and fixed all accessibility issues (which is true of any accessibility tool). But these are a great start!
TheWAVE browser tool can be a real time-saver in checking your pages for accessibility errors. You don't have to open the page editor in order to do your check. That means if you don't see any error alerts, you can just move on to the next page. Yay!
Be aware, it can't check color contrast or captions but it's great for heading styles, tables, alt text and lists.
NOTE: With tables, the WAVE tool will let you quickly see if table headers are present but it's easiest to use the Canvas Accessibility Checker to actually remediate the table. The "little person" will walk you through the steps without having to go into the HTML code at all.
The WAVE tool has some quirks so here's a quick video tutorial on how to best use it.
Accessibility Checker
Unlike the WAVE tool, you'll only see the Canvas accessibility checker once you've opened up the page editor. It's located in the toolbar below the edit area.
Currently, the tool is best relied on for checking color contrast and table formatting.
WAVE Tips
Take a screenshot of the errors before going into the editor so you can remember exactly what a where they were. Alternatively, have the page open in two browser windows, one with the WAVE errors and one in the page editor.
Before toggling into the HTML, add several line spaces above or below where you need to work in the code. That will help you locate the necessary section more easily.
If you're a purist, copy and paste the code into a true code editor, make your changes and then paste the revised code back in Canvas.
Errors to Ignore
Remember, when using the WAVE tool you can disregard any alerts showing outside the editable part of the page. The following are the typical "false positive" alerts that you'll get:
"Redundant title text"
"Adjacent links go to same URL"
NOTE: Evaluate this one and ignore only when it's shown in conjunction with the autopreview icon or with an embedded video. It's also possible to get this error when you have multiple links in different parts of the page all going to the same destination URL. That's an actual problem.
"Title attribute text is same as text/alt text"
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Requirements Changed
Microsoft Accessibility Checkers "Put It Into Practice" Answers