1.1. What is Bobby and why should I use it?2. Rating and the Bobby Approved Certification
1.2. How do I read Bobby's output?
1.3. What do the blue Bobby-Hats mean?
1.4. How can I make Bobby faster?
1.5. How do I test if my page is compatible with more than one web browser?
1.6. How do I get the application version of Bobby?
1.7. What are the system requirements for the Bobby application?
1.8. Is there a command-line version of Bobby that does not have a grahical user interface?
1.9. Where can I find out about future Bobby updates?
1.10. Does Bobby support the latest accessibility guidelines from the WAI (Web Accessibility Initiative)?
1.11. How do I send feedback to CAST or report bugs?
2.1. What does Bobby Approved mean?3. Problems
2.2. How does Bobby's rating system work?
2.3. Why did Bobby rate a web page as approved even though it is still inaccessible to a person who is blind, using lynx and a screen reader?
2.4. Does CAST monitor people's use of the Bobby Approved Icon?
2.5. How do the guidelines that Bobby uses differ from the current guidelines of the WAI (Web Accessibility Initiative)?
2.6. Will the Bobby Approved rating criterion change as the WAI guidelines are updated.
3.1. My web site requires that a browser accepts HTTP cookies. Does Bobby accept cookies?4. Known Bugs
3.2. Does Bobby analyze Javascript for accessibility?
3.3. Why is Bobby reporting all sorts of errors that don't really exist on my page?
3.4. I have a Link Exchange banner on my page and Bobby reports that it is an error. What can I do?
5.1. What other resources are available for validating the HTML of web pages?
Bobby is a web-based service and a downloadable application that will help you improve your web pages to make them more accessible to people with disabilities. Bobby is also able to do accessibility checks in a broader sense, testing whether or not web pages use HTML that is supported by particular web browsers.To use the online version of Bobby, go to the web page: http://www.cast.org/bobby, type in a URL that you want Bobby to analyze, and press the submit button.
Bobby will redisplay the web page that you asked it to analyze appending an accessibility report to the bottom of the page. The accessibility report will consist of at most six sections: accessibility errors, accessibility recommendations, accessibility questions, accessibility tips, browser compatibility, and download time. The accessibility errors section lists problems that seriously affect the page's usability by people with disabilities. A Bobby Approved rating can only be granted to a site in which none of the pages have accessibility errors. Accessibility recommendations are access problems which you should try to fix. They are not completly necessary to guarantee access, but are important to correct if you are able. The accessibility questions are all those places where Bobby thinks there might be an access error, but has no way of telling. The accessibility tips section is a list of tips that you can apply to improve the overall accessibility of your site. All of these access sections are important. The browser compatibility section lists those HTML elements and element attributes that are used on the page which are not valid for particular browsers. The download time section provides a summary of how long the web page and images would take to download on a slow modem line. Clicking on any of the problems that Bobby reports will produce a more detailed description of how to fix the problem.
Throughout the annotated version of the web page that Bobby displays, you will see blue Bobby hats with and without wheelchairs on them. Blue hats with wheelchairs tell you that there is a disability access problem at a particular point in the web page. If the blue hat does not have a wheelchair, it is a browser compatibility problem. Clicking on either type of hat will bring you to a description of the problem in the Bobby report at the end of the annotated page.
Checking the box labeled "text-only" on Bobby's home page will only display the Bobby report, not the annotated version of your web page. This will substantially increase the speed of Bobby.
Click the "advanced" link on Bobby's home page and select all of the browsers with which you want to test your page for compatibility.
You can get the Bobby application from the Bobby download page at http://www.cast.org/bobby/download.html.
Bobby is written in Java and requires a Java Virtual Machine (JVM) compatible with the Sun JVM 1.1 (a Java Virtual Machine is included with the Windows, and Solaris distributions). It will currently run under Windows 95/NT, Solaris, and Linux, The program requires at least 16MB of memory and should be run on a machine at least as fast as a 100Mhz Pentium.
We are currently finishing up work on a command-line version of Bobby.
Visit the Bobby home page
Bobby 3.0 is an improved implementation of the working draft of the W3C's WAI Page Authoring guidelines as well as reflecting the Page Authoring Group's latest revisions to them.There are some aspects of page design that are important to accessibility but can not be tested automatically by Bobby. A list of these can be found later on in the FAQ.
You can fill out the Bobby feedback form. If you'd prefer, you can send email to bobby@cast.org.
Bobby Approved is currently the only quantifiable way of measuring whether or not an entire web site is accessible to people with disabilities.
Bobby's accessibility analysis is a full implementation of the July 1998 working draft of the Web Accessibility Initiative's page authoring guidelines. Where it is possible for an automated agent to do so, Bobby analyzes web pages in accordance with these guidelines. A variety of important accessibility issues, for example the necessity of text transcriptions for audio files to help people who are deaf, can not yet be checked by a program like Bobby and require a person to manually look at the web pages. Many of these points will appear under the "Accessibility Tips" section of the Bobby report. We encourage you to carefully examine all accessibility tips and to read through the full text of the accessibility guidelines at http://www.w3c.org/WAI to make your site as accessible as possible. An individual web page will be approved only if it contains no accessibility errors.
Accessibility is ultimately a human endeavor. It is determined by whether or not a diverse group of people with a variety of abilities and disabilities can access information efficiently. Bobby helps to make web pages more accessible, but can not guarantee total accessibility. If you find a web page that you think incorrectly receives a Bobby Approved rating, please let us know.
No. Authors are on the honor system. We encourage authors to periodically retest pages with Bobby to makes sure that the Bobby Approved rating still applies as the pages are modified.
Bobby 3.0 is an improved implementation of the working draft of the W3C's WAI Page Authoring guidelines as well as reflecting the Page Authoring Guideline Working Group's latest revisions to them. There are, however, some aspects of page design that are important to accessibility but can not be tested automatically by Bobby. The following table lists each of the current WAI guidelines, and the type of support that Bobby provides:
A. Modality Independence
WAI Technique # Guideline WAI Rating Bobby Support a.1.1;a.4.1 Provide alternative text for all images p1 full a.1.2;c.1.4 Provide alternative text for each APPLET p1 full a.1.2;c.1.4 Provide alternative content for each APPLET p1 full a.1.3.1; c.2.1 Provide alternative text for all image map hot-spots p1 full a.1.3.2 Client-side image map contains a link not presented elsewhere on the page p2 recommendation a.1.4 Do not use server-side image maps unless the same functions are available through other mechanisms. p1 full a.1.5 Provide alternative text for all image submit buttons p1 full a.1.6 Avoid ASCII art. Replace it with an image and alternative text p2 tip a.1.7;c.1.4 Provide alternative content for each OBJECT that conveys information p1 full a.2.1 Does this image convey important information beyond what is in its alternative text description? p1 question a.2.1 Does this image convey important information beyond what is in its ALT text description? p1 question a.2.2 * Use the OBJECT element when most browsers support it p2 none a.3.1 Do all audio files have transcripts? p1 question a.3.2 * Tie text transcripts to audio clips using the REL attribute p3 none a.3.3;a.4.2;a.4.3 Does all video information have both a description and a caption? p1 question a.3.4 Have you provided visual notification and transcripts of sounds that are played automatically? p2 question a.5 Each FRAME must reference an HTML file p1 full a.6.1;a.6.2 Make sure that text, image, and background colors contrast well and that color is not used as the sole means of conveying important information p1 tip B. Output Display Independence
WAI Technique # Guideline WAI Rating Bobby Support b.1.1 Make sure that document structure is supported by the proper use of structural elements p2 tip b.1.2 Style sheets should be used to control layout and presentation wherever possible p2 tip b.1.3 * Use relative sizing and positioning rather than absolute p2 none b.2.1 Make sure that headings are nested properly p2 tip b.2.2 Encode list structures and list items properly p2 tip b.2.3 * Avoid deprecated elements p2 none b.2.4 Is this image button being used as a server-side image map? p2 question b.3.1 * Avoid using movement where possible p3 none b.3.2 * Provide a mechanism to allow users to freeze movement or updating in applets and scripts p1 none b.3.3 Is there an alternative page where "auto-refreshing" is only done on the users request (manual refreshing only)? p1 question b.3.4.1 Avoid blinking or scrolling text created with the BLINK element p1 full b.3.4.2 Avoid blinking or scrolling text created with the MARQUEE element p1 full b.4 Use the LANG attribute to identify the language of the text p2 recommendation C. Control Device Independence
WAI Technique # Guideline WAI Rating Bobby Support c.1.1 Ensure that pages are readable and usable without frames p1 full c.1.2 Provide alternative content for each SCRIPT that conveys important information or function p1 recommendation c.1.3 Make sure that style sheets fail gracefully p1 tip c.2.2 Considered adding keyboard shortcuts to important links p2 tip c.2.2 Furnish keyboard shortcuts for form elements p3 tip c.2.3 Specify a logical tab order among form controls p2 recommendation c.3.1 * Include default, place-holding characters in edit boxes and text areas p3 none c.3.2 Adjacent links should be separated p3 tip c.3.3 * Do not use pop-up windows or change active window unless the user is aware this is happening. p2 none D. Meta-information
WAI Technique # Guideline WAI Rating Bobby Support d.1.1 Give each frame a title p1 full d.1.2 Consider adding a description to FRAME or IFRAME when the frames TITLE is not sufficient p2 recommendation d.2.1;d.2.2 Use the ABBR and ACRONYM elements to denote abbreviations and acronyms p2 tip d.3.1 Group related controls and label each group p2 tip d.3.2 Associate labels with their form controls p2 recommendation d.3.3 For long lists of selections, group items into a hierarchy p2 tip d.4.1 If possible, avoid using tables to format text documents in columns p2 recommendation d.4.2 Provide summaries for tables of data p3 tip d.4.3 If this table contains data, have you identified headers for the table rows and columns? p2 question d.4.4 * When necessary use appropriate mark-up to convey table divisions p2 none d.4.5 Provide abbreviations for lengthy row or column labels p3 tip d.5 Create link phrases that make sense when read out of context p3 recommendation E. General Recommendations
WAI Technique # Guideline WAI Rating Bobby Support e.1 Use a validator to check pages for compliance with on of the W3Cs HTML specifications (already built into Bobby) p1 none e.2 Make applets as accessible as possible p2 tip e.3.1 * Provide accessible alternatives to the information in scripts, applets, or objects p1 none e.4.1;e.4.2;e.4.3 If you cant figure out any other way to make a page accessible, construct an alternate version of the page which is accessible p1 tip Browser Compatibility
WAI Technique # Guideline WAI Rating Bobby Support none Required attribute is missing from tag none browser none Unknown element name none browser none Attribute in element must be assigned a color none browser none Attribute in element is assigned an incorrect value none browser none Attribute in element must be assigned an integer none browser none Unknown attribute in element none browser none The closing tag of the element can not contain attributes none browser
With the release of Bobby 3.0, the Bobby Approved rating criterion has been relaxed, making it easier for web authors to achieve a Bobby Approved designation. At the same time more accessibility checks have been built into Bobby that help authors make their pages more accessible while not directly influence the accessibility rating.In the future, changes to the rating will only occur infrequently and we will make general announcements before they happen. Once the WAI accessibility guidelines reach the stage of a W3C recommendation, the Bobby Approved rating criterion will no longer change. Make sure to always recheck your web pages for accessibility after you have changed them.
Currently Bobby does not accept HTTP cookies.
No.
You may have some invalid HTML that prevents Bobby from correctly parsing the web page. For example, forgetting to use a closing > symbol for an HTML tag. In this case, we recommend using another validator like the W3C validator which will help you find this type of error. See the Additional Resources section for more information.
Link Exchange Banners are inaccessible because they rely on server-side image maps. If you want to make your page more accessible, don't use Link Exchange Banners.
While Bobby is able to find many of the more common accessibility problems on web pages, there are still many situations which it is unable to discover. Those interested in more detailed information should look at the following resources:In addition to checking for disability access, Bobby finds HTML elements and element attributes that are not compatible across browsers. This is a different type of analysis than some other HTML Validators found on the internet. Bobby does not check for valid document structure. While it will find incorrect HTML elements and element attributes for specific browsers, it doesn't look for things like two HEAD sections in an HTML document, or the necessity of placing a concluding </UL> tag after a <UL> tag, etc. For validation, we recommend using several other tools that are available free on the net. These include: