Today I am exploring Wave, a free accessibility scanner. I chose the website for Illustrative Mathematics 360 (https://accessim.org/) to run through Wave. Illustrative Mathematics 360 is a middle school math curriculum that is used in the district where I teach. This is a website that I use on a daily basis as a 7th and 8th grade math teacher. It is not only used by public educators, but also may be used by a parent or tutor who is trying to provide high quality learning materials for students. Accessibility is incredibly important for a K12 math curriculum resource because all students deserve a quality educational experience.
The image below shows the flagged errors that were found on the website after it was run through Wave.
Wave flagged multiple contrast errors on the website. These were areas of the website where there was very low contrast between text and background colors. The image below is an example of some of the low contrast areas of the website.
Wave also found suspicious alternative text which is shown by the image below. The alternative text did not provide the same content conveyed by the image.
Wave found redundant links in the top section of the website as shown in the image below. These are links that go to the same location and require additional navigation or repetition for a user.
I was surprised by the contrast errors on a high quality instructional website like IM 360. Difficulty with contrast is a struggle for many learners and it seems like a relatively easy accessibility error to catch and fix before launching a website.
I am curious how many businesses, schools and educational technology companies use a resource like Wave to assess the accessibility of their websites and materials. I am also interested in learning more about how Wave functions and how to navigate the error messages and code language.
dmkeeler6 