Watchfire Adds Accessibility Testing to WebQA

Wayne N. Kawamoto
Managing Editor, www.smallbusinesscomputing.com

Watchfire, a provider of Website Management software and services, announced the release of version 2.0 of Watchfire WebQA. WebQA, first commercially introduced in July 2002, is a website quality testing tool designed for small to medium sized websites or departmental sites that require a content testing solution for individual developers or quality assurance engineers.

Integrating the accessibility capabilities of Watchfire’s standalone website accessibility tool, Bobby, WebQA 2.0 now includes the ability to test for an organization’s level of compliance with government standards, including the U.S. Government’s Section 508 and the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). According to the company, WebQA is the first website testing application to combine accessibility checks with website quality testing capabilities.

WebQA scans and checks a site for more than 100 potential problems and reports on issues such as broken links, spelling mistakes, slow pages, missing keywords and ALT text, orphaned files, and page quality. WebQA is designed to scan and check the most file formats including HTML, JavaScript, Flash, and dynamically generated content (ASP, JSP, CFM, etc.)

Accessibility testing functionality has been added to WebQA and it now includes the ability to scan for over 90 comprehensive accessibility checks, and offer suggestions based on the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and the U.S. Government’s Section 508. WebQA allows developers to test web pages and generate summary reports highlighting critical accessibility issues before posting the content to live servers. WebQA also analyzes and reports on web content quality issues such as broken links, slow loading pages, spelling, metadata, and missing ALT text.

The software records and plays back scripts that duplicate the actions a user makes on a site to see if the transactions and interactions on the site, (such as checkouts and login forms), are working as designed. WebQA is also used to automatically add, edit, and manage metatags in documents on the site to improve search engine effectiveness.

Pricing and availability
WebQA is available immediately from Watchfire’s sales force or download from www.watchfire.com for US$1495.00. Customers may download WebQA for a 15-day evaluation period. For more information, please visit www.watchfire.com.