The Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST), is a not-for-profit organization
founded in l984. The mission of CAST is to expand opportunities for people with disabilities through innovative uses of computer technology.
Bobby is a web-based tool developed by CAST to analyze web pages for their accessibility to people with disabilities. Bobby's analysis of accessibility is based on the World Wide Web Consortium's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.
Bobby will analyze a web site to determine problems that might hinder access by disabled users. This free service is simple and is an excellent first step to ensure accessible web page design.
To check websites simply type in the URL of the page to be examined and click "Submit." Bobby analyzes the website and reports on the accessibility and browser compatibility. In addition, a Bobby Approved icon will be presented to identify a website that is user friendly for the disabled.
Bobby also provides suggestions and guidelines that are helpful to for low vision and blind user. Their guidelines include the following:
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l. Provide text translations for images, animation and video
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2. Summarize graphs and charts
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3. Ensure that information conveyed with color is also available without color
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4. Identify changes in natural language of a document's text and text equivalents of non-text content such as captions
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5. Clearly and logically organize content
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6. Provide alternative content for features that may not be supported such as applets and plug-ins (3)