All-new Accessibility test

Today we're pleased to reveal our new Accessibility test, which covers WCAG 2.0 A, AA and AAA. This test has been rebuilt from scratch on our all new Silktide engine, making it far more comprehensive, flexible and easier to use. In the coming months, all of our tests will be moved to this engine. Some highlights:

• Issues are now broken down into tasks (think of them like "to-do" items).

• Tasks are sorted by priority and you can change their priority.

• You can also choose to ignore whole tasks, or pages, or issues, or varying combinations of each.
• Any decisions you make – such as ignoring a page, or approving some alternative text – are recorded under a new Decisions tab, which shows the decision, who made it and when, and allows you to undo any past decision.

• All tasks and issues use a simpler list of states : they are either Open, Done, or Ignored (previously they could be Approved, Potential, Suggested, Ignored and Approved).
• We've introduced severities for tasks: Errors (definite problems), Warnings (likely problems) and Notices (may be problems, these need to be manually checked).
• You can now filter results by state, severity and WCAG standard, e.g. "see all open WCAG AA errors".

• The Inspector has been completely rebuilt to be faster, to support filters, and to allow for results from multiple tests to be viewed together. As we move more tests to this framework, they will all use the new Inspector:

• The new Inspector allows you to view just a single issue, and step through every page with that issue. You can see screenshots of every affected page and browse directly to one if you wish:

Previously the WCAG test only covered WCAG level A. Our new test covers A, AA and AAA, and shows progress towards each conformance level. (Note that WCAG AAA includes a large number of manual checks, that Silktide will notify you about, but which it is not able to fully automate). Scores for this test will change, as the accessibility standards are different. Users of the old Section 508 test will notice the largest change; as of January 18, 2018 Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 requires compliance with WCAG 2.0 AA.

New pages screen

The pages screen has also been upgraded to use our new engine. This replaces three old screens – Desktop pages, Mobile pages, and Redirections. All three are now incorporated into a tighter and more flexible interface, which includes more viewing options and filters.