Chrome DevTools vs. Equalweb vs. WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool

Chrome DevTools are great for troubleshooting bugs, broken elements on pages, styling issues, responsiveness, identifying performance issues, third-party connections for data privacy, reviewing cookies and local storage, screenshots in different dimensions. Chrome DevTools are for technical users, so you do need to have a decent understanding of some basics like HTML and CSS to get started using them.

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Equalweb is well suited to most web browsing experiences, especially desktop. If someone already has a screen reader or accessibility tools, the functionality overlap might not be ideal.

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This is pretty middle of the road. It does a good job of picking out some of the low-hanging fruit, but it's not going properly evaluate semantic structure and will pop several false positives. Additionally, the tools are incomplete. For instance, the contrast editor will allow you to test your colors with sliders so you can get the closest color that passes; however, that isn't how color palettes work, you generally don't get to change a companies palette without a lot of pain; furthermore, there is no ability to adjust the font-size and both font-size AND color are used to determine contrast requirements. Oh, and they use points VS pixels...nobody is using points on the web even if the ADA uses them in their fairly dated guidelines. Text from the actual contrast editor "Text is present that has a contrast ratio less than 4.5:1, or large text (larger than 18 point or 14 point bold) has a contrast ratio less than 3:1.". 14pt = 18.66 pixels, so I can see their logic even if I don't agree with it

• The Elements panel is usually our first port of call to inspect and modify HTML and CSS in real-time.
• The Issues panel helps us to identify and resolve problems like cookie issues etc.
• The console panel allows developers to see the log output created by their website in real-time.
• Lighthouse helps us identify any issues with accessibility

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• It offers great accessibility features that are 100% customizable and are available in more than 32 languages.
• Easy installation.
• Low cost.
• It allows to adjust the functions or web pages according to the disabilities, needs or individual preferences.

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• Provides report of errors for you
• Explains what needs to be fixed so you know why
• Shows the errors next to each item on your website so you can see which one they mean

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• As one delves into DevTools, one encounters a gradually steeper learning curve. You can do a lot very quickly, but to fully utilize DevTools takes time as one explores what it can do.
• With many new updates, tools and items are moved, and a comfortable workflow becomes a frustrating search. This often happens when following only slightly outdated tutorials on a given feature, even in Google's own documentation.
• The experimental flags, settings, and options are scattered about and a little clunky to configure when one has to make changes in multiple places.

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• The 2FA to login to the account only has the option for an automated call, not text message or an authentication app. This can get annoying to deal with on the long run, especially if you access the dashboard a lot.
• Sometimes, the pricing tool has trouble detecting the number of pages on a site we just launched (it's still counting the pages on the old site) so the pricing choices that are presented are not accurate and I have to contact support to get the correct pricing package in place.
• The last price increase wasn't too cheap.

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• Sometimes the automated functions miss things or are mis-triggered
• I would like it to link out to more in-depth reading on issues and resolving them
• I would love it if it generated a PDF report to send people.

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While Chrome DevTools are very powerful, it's not the easiest thing to use, as there are so many different tools built in. It takes some exploring to discover all the options possible within DevTools, but with a little exploring, the DevTools become a very powerful asset. Accessing the basic HTML and CSS inspection is very easy though, and that's the most common usage for the DevTools.

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I'm not entirely sure what to rate the support for DevTools, because I don't have any experience dealing with official customer support for DevTools. I would guess the primary support for DevTools would be in a Chrome forum. Typically if I have a question or issue, I am able to find an answer from doing a quick Google search. It's pretty widely used, so it's not difficult to find answers.

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I find them pretty much the same, they have the same tools except Firefox doesn't provide the lighthouse functionality. I do prefer firefox's dark theme and colour palette. But I use Chrome Dev tools because of the Light house functionality that analyzes the page load and scores the website on desktop and mobile experience.

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These tools help to customize our website in an effective and efficient way, facilitating access to our website without any problem for people with special abilities for perfect accessibility.

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For this, I'm speaking specifically to the Siteimprove browser plugin. The Siteimprove plugin: Allows to filter on guideline level Catches a few more errors than WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool, but comes pretty close But, both do a great job in all other aspects WebAIM shines in its simplicity of overlaying of errors and warnings on the page. I think its real benefit is a lower learning curve on understanding how to use the tool

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• All positive, the tool is free so there's no need to spend money on it. Every return is positive.
• A lot, their tools increases productivity due because it helps developers to create and test websites inside the browser.
• Tools are intuitive so there's no need to invest in education on developers to learn these tools.

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• Provides extra value in our website maintenance package.
• An edge over the competition in terms of website functionality.

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• It has led us to be more inclusive and accessible in our website
• We have more website visitors
• We have had positive comments about our website in terms of being accessible

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