W15yQC

W15yQC Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

• Installing / Uninstalling
  • How do I install W15yQC
  • What is a XPI file?
  • How do I uninstall W15yQC
• Using
  • I cannot find the W15yQC toolbar button. Where is it?
  • Can W15yQC work with Firebug?
  • Tips and Tricks
    • How can I detect incorrectly labeled controls?
• General
  • Why 'W15y'
  • If W15yQC does not report any issues, does the page conform to the WCAG, Section 508, or other accessibility standard?
  • What accessibility issues does W15yQC check for?
  • What kind of accessibility issues can W15yQC not detect?
  • What else needs to be done to certify my Web site is accessible?
• Troubleshooting
  • One of the W15yQC keyboard shortcuts overrides a shortcut used by another important extension of mine. What can I do?
  • How do I report a bug?

How to Install W15yQC

Watch a demonstration screencast of installing W15yQC.

1. Go to the W15yQC Downloads page.
2. Select the latest stable version to download.
3. Once the XPI file has downloaded, just drag it into any open Firefox window to install or use Firefox's "Open file..." feature to open the XPI file.
4. Select "Restart Now".
5. The W15yQC extension will be installed when the browser is re-opened.

What is a XPI file?

A file with the XPI file extension is a Mozilla Firefox Web Browser Extension Archive file. Extensions are Firefox add-ons that provide additional functionality to Firefox. If you have an XPI file, just drag it to any open Firefox window to install. A XPI file is actually just a .zip file (with the file extension changed to .xpi) so any archive/compression program that can open ZIP files will open XPI files if the XPI file is renamed from .xpi to .zip.

To learn more about Mozilla Firefox extensions and XPI files, see the "Use extensions to add features to Firefox - Firefox Help page".

How to Uninstall W15yQC

1. Open the Firefox browser.
2. Navigate on the browser menu bar to "Tools", and then "Add-ons".
3. Select the "Extensions" tab.
4. Select "Remove" button under W15y Quick Check, and then "Restart Now".
5. The W15yQC extension will be gone when the browser is re-opened.

How can I detect incorrectly labeled controls?

Why 'W15y'?

The '15' in 'W15y' stands for the number of letters between the first W and last y in 'Web Accessibility', making W15y an abbreviation for Web Accessibility. This is in the same vein as using i18n as an abbreviation for Internationalization.

What kind of accessibility issues can W15yQC not detect?

The W15yQC Firefox Extention is an automated web accessibility checking tool. It has routines that inspect the way a given web page is rendered by the Firefox web browser. The routines check for common patterns that indicate the potential for an accessibility issue. For almost every pattern W15yQC checks for, there are exceptions where nothing is wrong and the indicated warning or failure should have been a 'pass' (the warning or failure indication flagged an issue which will have no real-world adverse impact on accessibility). With experience, you will learn to recognize the contexts where an indicated issue will not be a true problem. When in doubt, consult the W15yQC help documentation on a given issue, ask another accessibility professional, or have a user test the feature in question for accessibility issues.

Automated accessibility checkers cannot catch every accessibility issue. There will be issues that get passed - or not even examined! Automated checkers cannot decode complex CSS layouts or evaluate complex user interface scripting that is dependent upon user interaction. Many accessibility issues simply cannot be positively checked for by automatic means. Manual testing involving testing various combinations of web browsers and assitive technologies, testing with representative users, and even a manual code review may be required to find some issues.

How Do I Report a Bug

Report a bug by creating a new issue on the W15yQC Issues page for the W15yQC project on github.