What is WAVE, and how do I use it?

WAVE is a suite of tools to help you make your web content more accessible. WAVE cannot tell you if your web content is accessible. Only a human can determine true accessibility. But WAVE can help you, as a human, evaluate the accessibility of your web content.

WAVE is easy to use: 

• Use the form at WEBAIM for WAVE, enter the web page address of your page and submit the form. 
• There are also Chrome, Firefox, and Edge browser extensions for evaluating local, dynamic, or password-protected pages and site-wide WAVE tools for evaluating numerous pages.

View the Introduction to WAVE video on YouTube (00:11:20 minutes) and visit the WAVE HELP page at WAVE Help.

What is PopeTech, and how do I use it?

Pope Tech is a paid subscription that runs a WAVE scan every week around 1 am on Monday and emails the results to a list of people. Another feature that needs to be done manually is a crawl that adds new pages and removes old ones from the scan. Pope Tech can only find about 30% of accessibility-related issues. The priority of fixes that Pope Tech flags would be errors in color contrast, errors in alerts, and, finally, features. You will be responsible for running your WAVE scans.

1. Check your email for any changes (the weekly report sent out on Mondays)
   • You can see changes underneath the number with an up or down arrow.
   • If there are any changes, or not what you were expecting, navigate to PopeTech

2. Log-in to PopeTech.

3. You may need to select “ScreenSteps” from the website drop-down located on the top left.
4. Then select “Update".

5. Once updated, the types (errors, contrast, alerts, etc.) will be grouped on the left-hand side of the screen in the “Result Types” widget.

6. If you select a type, you can see the issues being flagged.

7. Select the double arrows under details to see where that issue is being flagged at within your web content.

8. You can then select any of the options to see the issue

1. Page: Go to the page with the issue
2. Code: See the code for the page with the issue
3. Dismiss: Dismiss the issue (if it is wrong)
4. Inspect: A pop-up of the page will appear
5. WAVE: Go to the page with WAVE already ran

9. Address the issue

• Go to ScreenSteps Help
  • Search the issue
• WAVE may offer insight on how to fix the issue
• Most common errors and alerts can be fixed with How to Create an Accessible ScreenSteps Article