Accessible Content

Important note

The accessible content module's work has moved to the Accessibility module.

Overview

The Accessible Content module helps site administrators ensure that their content meets accessibility requirements, such as WCAG.

The module operates using two node types: Guidelines and Tests. The module comes with a small set of predefined guidelines, as well as a test node for every accessibility test supported by the QUAIL accessibility library.

Guidelines

Guidelines are simply a collection of tests, like WCAG or Section 208. The Accessible Content module creates a guideline node for Section 508 and all three levels of WCAG 1.0 and WCAG 2.0. Administrators can create their own guidelines as well.

When editing or creating a new guideline, just use the Accessibility Test section of the form to check off the tests that apply to the guideline.

Tests

When the module is first enabled, it will create around 200 nodes for all the tests that QUAIL supports. Each test is for one kind of element or accessibility problem. The most commonly used test might be a test to see if the alt attribute exists for an image.

Each test has a severity level. These are set initially when the module creates the test nodes, but a site admin can change this. A test is divided into three levels which correspond to the certainty of the test that when it finds errors it does or does not require human confirmation.

• Severe A test with 100% certainty through automated testing alone.
• Moderate A test which can find an error through automation, but might need additional human feedback.
• Suggestion A test that requires additional human feedback. These include tests about language or writing that are triggered if there are any words at all.

Installation

To install the module, you need to first download and install the QUAIL Accessibility Information Library from http://quail-lib.org. Rename the folder to just "quail" and move it into your sites/all/libraries folder. After this, the file "quail.php" should be available at sites/all/libraries/quail/quail/quail.php. (Note: 1.0 users need to put the sub-folder quail into the module's folder itself.)

After enabling the module, you need to install the test files. Visit admin/settings/accessible_content/create_tests and click the "Update Tests" button. This will install all the 250ish tests that come with QUAIL into your Drupal site as Accessibility Test nodes.

Enabling Accessibility Testing

Accessibility testing is controlled through the content type form. When an administrator creates or edits an existing node type, like a 'page' content type, an Accessibility Tests area contains the following options:

• Enable Accessibility Testing Check this this box to turn on accessibility testing for the node type.
• Guideline Select the guideline that applies to this node type.
• Node authors can also be prevented from submitting a node if it fails any test marked as Severe.
• Some tests only make sense when testing whole HTML pages, not content within a page (like most nodes in Drupal). By default, the option to ignore these tests is turned on; however, a site administrator could disable this.
• An option to only check content for accessibility after filters are applied to the content. This is important if the site is using an input filter which uses different markup than HTML, such as the Textile module.

CCK Fields

If CCK is installed, any field that is a Text field type with input filtering (HTML enabled) turned on, can also be checked for accessibility. Fields inherit the settings of the node they are attached to, so the option on a per-field basis is a simple checkbox titled "Enable accessibility checking".

Reporting

Accessibility Block

The site administrator can enable an Accessibility Information block that will show the current accessibility statistics for the currently viewed node. This information is only available to users who have the view accessibility information permission.

Accessibility Tab

If a user views any node where accessibility testing is enabled, they will be able to view a report from the Accessibility Tab. This tab will show, for both the node body and any CCK Fields, a list of all the accessibility problems broken down by severity level.

Highlighted View

From the accessibility tab, users can also view a highlighted form of the node, with problems styled to have a color-coded border with an image in front that links to the relevant problem. If BeautyTips is installed, these images also show test information on hover. Administrators can customize the images and styles at admin/settings/accessible_content.