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Juicy CSS Accessibility Analyser

Added on Tuesday 17 Feb 2004

Gez Lemon has come up with yet another useful addition to the accessible web designers toolbox - a CSS accessibility checker. I could take the time to tell you what it does, or be lazy and leave that job to Gez:

"I've been working on a CSS accessibility program. It's a very basic service at the moment, but I'm hoping over time to make the service highlight potential accessibility issues. At the moment, it validates the CSS using the W3C's validation service, checks for colour contrast between foreground and background colours, and then checks that relative units have been specified for font sizes. It also has an option to check that relative units have been used for margin, padding, and width. At this point, I wouldn't say it's amazingly useful, but it's an extra tool that might be useful for developers wanting to ensure their work is accessible."

More information can be found at Juicy Studio. The service is available from http://www.juicystudio.com/services/csstest.asp.

Results from a CSS test falls into one of three areas:

Photo: CSS accessibiltiy checker icons.

I tested the MCU stylesheet, and got a few warnings because I had either not specified both foreground and background colours, or used transparent as the background colour.

I also got one error, because I made the background and foreground colours for my banner the same - which is exactly as I intended - so it proveds the CSS checker is working as advertised.

Well done Gez - looks like you are onto something here!


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