ADA Gap

How it works

  1. You type a website address. For example yoursite.com, or the address of one page.
  2. We open the page in a real web browser on our server, just like a visitor would, and wait for it to finish loading.
  3. We run a well-known free checking tool called axe-core on the page. It tests the page against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, level AA. That is the standard the U.S. Department of Justice adopted for state and local government websites.
  4. We add a few checks of our own: that the page has a title, says what language it is in, lets people zoom in, still fits the screen when zoomed to double size, and has a main heading.
  5. We explain every problem in plain English, with a picture of where it is, who it affects, and how to fix it.

Gaps, and things a person must check

A gap is a problem the check is sure about. Some things can't be decided by a computer, such as whether a picture's description is accurate, or whether text on top of a photo is easy to read. Those are listed under "Needs a person to check", with simple steps to check them yourself.

What it cannot do

This is an automatic check of one page at a time. It finds many common problems, but it cannot prove a site meets the ADA. Some things need a person to check, such as using the whole site with only a keyboard, or listening to it with a screen reader.

For developers

Every gap has a "Technical details" section with the rule name, the WCAG success criterion and the exact spots on the page. The same report is available as JSON at https://www.adagap.com/api/v1/report?url=yoursite.com. Add &fresh=1 to run a new check. While a check is running, the answer is status 202 with "pending":true; ask again to get the report.