Tools for Novice and Expert Accessibility Professionals: Requirements for the Next Generation Web Accessibility Evaluation Tools List

The W3C Web Accessibility Evaluation Tools list offers one of the most comprehensive and most referenced lists for accessibility evaluation tools today. The tools in the list can help check or monitor various accessibility issues on websites and apps. This paper describes the re-design of the list to make it more future proof and accessible for a large variety of stakeholders, both accessibility experts, novices and others to find the right tool for their situation and needs. The re-design included defining the audience, information needs, user-stories, design and layout, comprehensive user and technology-oriented filter options, decision support for users, etc. The researchers propose new functionality to guide users to relevant accessibility tools, such as a step-by-step search assistant, new updated filter and search functions, and adding relevant and understandable information for each tool. The end result provides both experienced and novice tool users with options to filter and search for the tool that suits their needs.