Web²Access

Results for babycenter.com

Description

This website provides information for mothers and children and claims that its "purpose is to support parents through their journey of parenthood with a blend of expert advice and user-created wisdom." BabyCenter is an American website with a community forum. blog and twitter feeds. It has served more than 100 million parents since its launch in 1997.

Accessibility Testing Results

Using the WebAIM WAVE toolbar highlighted many accessibility errors such as Form labels missing, missing alt text and use of tables for layout all of which causes difficulty for screen readers users. The text browser (WebbIE) also highlighted these difficulties. For these reasons, it does not pass WCAG1 AA 13.1 and WCAG2 A 2.4.4 Using the website without CSS is not easy because CSS style with font styles is important for disable people. For this reason, this website does not pass WCAG1 AA 3.5 and WCAG2 A 1.3.1.This website uses frames, but these IFRAME tags do not have alternative content. For this reason, the website does not pass WCAG1 A 1.1, Section 508 (a) or WCAG2 A 1.1.1. In addition, the feedback was not helpful because it appeared after registering. The summary of Usability evaluation:Colour Contrast Analyser tool describes that the website has high Colour Contrast. However, when using the zoom feature by Illinois Firefox Accessibility Extension tool, the site becomes unreadable for disabled people.

#	Test	Score	Summary
1	Login, Signup and Other Forms Accessible		The forms do not have labels which causes difficulty for screen reader users and NVDA just hears a table element. However, WebbIE text browser does provide correct forms to fill after the title for each sign up element.
2	Image ALT Attributes		Some images have alternative text and these tend to be the main ones but advertisements and when going deeper into the web site there are several missing alt tags.
3	Link Target Definitions		Some links are not defined clearly and may seem ambiguous such as 'click here' or 'read more'.
4	Frame Titles and Layout		The frames are missing titles which does not help screen reader users.
5	Removal of Stylesheet		The site navigation is more difficult (without the stylesheet) as it is incredibly long and in places there are columns that are not read in the correct order.
6	Audio/Video Features		Videos and any audio features have to have captions and descriptions added before they are uploaded to the site. It is possible to write summaries or comments.
7	Video/animations - audio descriptions		Videos and graphics contain text descriptions but the user has to manually add the audio descriptions before uploading the videos.
8	Appropriate use of Tables		The website appears to have tables as part of the menu layout and sign in pages which do not have headers.
9	Tab Orderings Correct and Logical		Tab order is correct and is highlighted when the cursor moves top-to-bottom or left-to-right within the format of the pages.
10	Page Functionality with Keyboard		Most links and edit areas can be reached when using keyboard access. However, all the video players in this site cannot be controlled by the keyboard using Firefox. The accessibility depends on the browser used.
11	Accessibility of Text Editors		Although it is possible to tab into the edit forms, screen reader users or keyboard users cannot make full use of the rich text editor.
12	Appropriate Feedback with Forms		If the forms are filled in and there are errors, once submitted red text appears to highlight the missing sections or incorrect items. However, this is not easy to track using a screen reader unless the whole page is read over again.
13	Contrast and Colour Check		Colour contrast levels are good other than the text for some menus on a grey background.
14	Page Integrity when Zooming		When using the zoom feature, the site remains readable in all browsers but there is a considerable amount of horizontal scrolling.
15	Text size, style, blinking elements and Readability		The main site is more readable than internal pages which have text in a smaller font, which is difficult to view without zooming the pages. Some links are also very small and items underneath links in certain sections. Most content is clearly written and there are no blinking elements

Disability-Tailored Results

The following table shows how well the product performs for people with disabilities, as listed in the Disabilities section.

Percentages do not indicate how much of a site is accessible. They indicate the average figure of test results relevant to each disability. Select a disability to see which tests are relevant to it.

Activities you can do with babycenter.com

• Image Sharing
• Group Discussion
• Journal Entries
• Comments and Sharing Views
• Video Sharing
• Real-Time Communication
• Collections of specific items