Eye-Able® Audit – Update 3.0

In the wake of the release of WCAG 2.2(read more here in our article), we released a major update for Eye-Able® Audit. It has mainly improved usability, audit scope and appearance. The new update extends Audit with the goal of being the most comprehensive accessibility audit tool, while keeping usability and understandability of errors high for all user groups.

The update has an impact on your rating in Eye-Able Report. Due to the new audit steps and the changes due to WCAG 2.2, some of the rating may deteriorate and the number of errors may increase. The following changes are included in Audit 3.0:

General improvements

• Visual improvement of the toolbar, especially the tool and link region

• 34 New test steps from different areas of WCAG 2.2 and to support best practice rules

• Significant improvement of the error preview and tips, for example, the Tag of the missing element is now usually given for missing elements.

• The responsibility (design, code or content) is now displayed in the error overview in Audit

• Introduction of a new screen reader focus mode that makes the "highlight" feature of the bugs possible for screen readers

• It is now possible to jump between highlighted errors with the arrows in the toolbar, always scrolling to the next element

• Many small improvements and bug fixes

• Implementation of an external WCAG/BITV test by BITV-Consult for external control of optimal usability, also with assistive technologies.

• At the beginning of the scan, the page is now scrolled down once to a more reproducible state. This increases the accuracy of the test results.

Example of error visualization in Eye-Able® Audit in complex errors

Start of the guided tests

The update 3.0 introduces the first guided test for alternative texts of images. Besides checking if an alt text is set at all, you can now also check the quality of existing alt texts. More tests will be added in the next update.

New rules and changes to existing rules

In general, the error texts have been revised again to improve comprehensibility for all levels of knowledge.

The new rules are changes made to WCAG by the 2.2 update, for example the new rule R104 - "Touch target is too small". Many rule will now also help you better find ARIA errors of the page and properly use page regions, for better navigation. The following new rules have been added:

• New rule: R78 - "Content not included in page region".

• New rule: R85 - "Text contrast insufficient (increased)".

• New rule: R86 - "ARIA Meter element has no accessible name".

• New rule: R87 - "ARIA progress bar has no accessible name".

• New rule: R88 - "Missing ARIA Braille equivalent".

• New rule: R89 - "ARIA button, link or menu item without accessible name".

• New rule: R90 - "ARIA role has missing attributes".

• New rule: R91 - "ARIA tooltip has no accessible name".

• Neue Regel: R92 – „<blink> Element ist veraltet“

• New rule: R93 - "Lack of possibility to bypass content blocks".

• Neue Regel: R94 – „Inkorrekte <dl>-Element Struktur“

• Neue Regel: R95 – „<dt>- oder <dd>-Element nicht von <dl> umgeben“

• New rule: R96 - "Form field has multiple labels".

• New rule: R98 - "ARIA ID not unique".

• Neue Regel: R99 – „Listen dürfen nur <li>-Elemente enthalten“

• Neue Regel: R101 – „Vermeiden Sie <marquee>-Elemente“

• New rule: R102 - "Avoid server-side image maps".

• New rule: R104 - "Touch target is too small".

• New rule: R106 - "ARIA dialog has no accessible name".

• New rule: R108 - "ARIA-Treeitem has no accessible name".

• New rule: R110 - "Form field has no visible label".

• New rule: R111 - "Banner region is not on the top level".

• New rule: R112 - "Supplementary region is not at the top level".

• New rule: R113 - "Contentinfo region is not on the top level".

• New rule: R114 - "Main region is not at the top level".

• New rule: R115 - "More than one banner region present".

• New rule: R116 - "More than one Contentinfo region present".

• New rule: R117 - "More than one main region present".

• New rule: R118 - "A main region is missing".

• New rule: R119 - "Region is not unique".

• New rule: R120 - "Scope attribute in table is incorrect".

• New rule: R121 - "Page has no jump link to main content".

• Neue Regel: R123 – „Tabelle hat identische <caption> und summary“

• New rule: R124 - "Identical links with different targets".

The following major changes were made to existing rules:

• R25 - "Check contrast manually" was reclassified as best practice

• R32 - "ID not unique" has also been reclassified as a best practice. Due to a change in WCAG as part of the 2.2 update, WCAG 4.1.1 parsing is no longer an error. IDs only generate an error if this makes an accessible name ambiguous.

• R56 - "Undefined ARIA attribute" was upgraded from Warning to Error and moved from Best Practice to WCAG 4.1.2.

• R57 - "ARIA value or attribute not supported" was upgraded from warning to error and moved from best practice to WCAG 4.1.2.

• R58 - "ARIA value not allowed" was upgraded from Warning to Error and moved from Best Practice to WCAG 4.1.2.