Using WAVE to Find and Fix Accessibility Errors

WAVE is a set of tools that makes it easy to identify many accessibility errors and get feedback on how to fix them. WAVE has tools to help someone brand new to accessibility or web design, and features that can help advanced users.

Getting Started with WAVE

Using WAVE can be as simple as going to the WAVE website, putting in the URL of a page, and clicking enter to view an accessibility report for the page:

To make it easier, we recommend installing the WAVE Browser Extension for Chrome, Firefox, or Edge. Once the WAVE extension is installed, you can use it to get an accessibility report for any page.

To get started with WAVE, we recommend you watch this 11-minute video about the tool’s features:

Note: The WAVE tools were developed right here at Utah State University by WebAIM in the Institute for Disability Research, Policy & Practice. They are used by people all over the world! 

WAVE is a great tool to use when getting started and is helpful for checking one page at a time. The university also uses Pope Tech to scan all university websites monthly. Pope Tech uses WAVE to scan all the pages on a site and shares that information in reports. These reports can help you identify common errors across all your pages.

Below are some more resources to help you get started using WAVE: 

• WAVE Documentation
  A helpful document going over all the individual icons in WAVE. It also has information about why the icons matter, what you can do to fix accessibility errors, and a plain language description of each error.
• Tips for Getting the Most Out of WAVE
  Some “power user” tips to help you take full advantage of the tools that WAVE provides.
• Use the WAVE extension to start accessibility audits and embed accessibility into processes