The original Bobby was a free online tool, written by Josh Krieger and provided by the Centre for Applied Special Technology (CAST), used to validate websites for WAI and Section 508 compliance. Launched in 1995, [1] it became well known for the usage of the Bobby Approved icon that website authors could use to indicate they have successfully passed the Bobby online test. Development was coordinated by Chuck Hitchcock, CAST's Chief Officer of Policy and Technology, and further developed by David Clark and Michael Cooper.
The CAST tool was officially closed on May 1, 2005. However, the Bobby name lived on in Watchfire Corporation's Watchfire Bobby program. Watchfire provided the same free service that CAST did with Bobby in their Watchfire WebXACT tool. Watchfire's offering, now part of an IBM suite described below, tests pages of web content for quality, accessibility, and privacy issues.
The free tool was officially closed by the owners, IBM, on February 1, 2008. [2] The software is now available as part of IBM's Rational Policy Tester Accessibility Edition. [1] [3]
Currently, the Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool (WAVE) provides this free service at wave.webaim.org.
In 1998, the U.S. Congress amended the Rehabilitation Act to require federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology accessible to people with disabilities. Section 508 was enacted to eliminate barriers in information technology, to make available new opportunities for people with disabilities and to encourage the development of technologies that will help achieve these goals. The law applies to all federal agencies when they develop, procure, maintain, or use electronic and information technology. Under Section 508, agencies must give employees with disabilities and members of the public access to information that is comparable to the access available to others.
Software testing is the act of checking whether software satisfies expectations.
Usability engineering is a professional discipline that focuses on improving the usability of interactive systems. It draws on theories from computer science and psychology to define problems that occur during the use of such a system. Usability Engineering involves the testing of designs at various stages of the development process, with users or with usability experts. The history of usability engineering in this context dates back to the 1980s. In 1988, authors John Whiteside and John Bennett—of Digital Equipment Corporation and IBM, respectively—published material on the subject, isolating the early setting of goals, iterative evaluation, and prototyping as key activities. The usability expert Jakob Nielsen is a leader in the field of usability engineering. In his 1993 book Usability Engineering, Nielsen describes methods to use throughout a product development process—so designers can ensure they take into account the most important barriers to learnability, efficiency, memorability, error-free use, and subjective satisfaction before implementing the product. Nielsen’s work describes how to perform usability tests and how to use usability heuristics in the usability engineering lifecycle. Ensuring good usability via this process prevents problems in product adoption after release. Rather than focusing on finding solutions for usability problems—which is the focus of a UX or interaction designer—a usability engineer mainly concentrates on the research phase. In this sense, it is not strictly a design role, and many usability engineers have a background in computer science because of this. Despite this point, its connection to the design trade is absolutely crucial, not least as it delivers the framework by which designers can work so as to be sure that their products will connect properly with their target usership.
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)'s Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) is an effort to improve the accessibility of the World Wide Web for people with disabilities. People with disabilities encounter difficulties when using computers generally, but also on the Web. Since they often require non-standard devices and browsers, making websites more accessible also benefits a wide range of user agents and devices, including mobile devices, which have limited resources. According to a US government study, 71% of website visitors with disabilities will leave a website that is not accessible.
The rational unified process (RUP) is an iterative software development process framework created by the Rational Software Corporation, a division of IBM since 2003. RUP is not a single concrete prescriptive process, but rather an adaptable process framework, intended to be tailored by the development organizations and software project teams that will select the elements of the process that are appropriate for their needs. RUP is a specific implementation of the Unified Process.
Accessibility is the design of products, devices, services, vehicles, or environments so as to be usable by people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design and practice of accessible developments ensures both "direct access" and "indirect access" meaning compatibility with a person's assistive technology.
Computer accessibility refers to the accessibility of a computer system to all people, regardless of disability type or severity of impairment. The term accessibility is most often used in reference to specialized hardware or software, or a combination of both, designed to enable the use of a computer by a person with a disability or impairment.
Web accessibility, or eAccessibility, is the inclusive practice of ensuring there are no barriers that prevent interaction with, or access to, websites on the World Wide Web by people with physical disabilities, situational disabilities, and socio-economic restrictions on bandwidth and speed. When sites are correctly designed, developed and edited, more users have equal access to information and functionality.
A penetration test, colloquially known as a pentest, is an authorized simulated cyberattack on a computer system, performed to evaluate the security of the system; this is not to be confused with a vulnerability assessment. The test is performed to identify weaknesses, including the potential for unauthorized parties to gain access to the system's features and data, as well as strengths, enabling a full risk assessment to be completed.
A test script in software testing is a set of instructions that will be performed on the system under test to test that the system functions as expected.
Windows Live is a discontinued brand name for a set of web services and software products developed by Microsoft as part of its software-as-a-service platform. Chief components under the brand name included web services, several computer programs that interact with the services, and specialized web services for mobile devices.
Unicom System Architect is an enterprise architecture tool that is used by the business and technology departments of corporations and government agencies to model their business operations and the systems, applications, and databases that support them. System Architect is used to build architectures using various frameworks including TOGAF, ArchiMate, DoDAF, MODAF, NAF and standard method notations such as sysML, UML, BPMN, and relational data modeling. System Architect is developed by UNICOM Systems, a division of UNICOM Global, a United States–based company.
PAS 78: Guide to good practice in commissioning accessible websites is a Publicly Available Specification published on March 8, 2006 by the British Standards Institution in collaboration with the Disability Rights Commission. It provides guidance to organisations in how to go about commissioning an accessible website from a design agency. It describes what is expected from websites to comply with the UK Disability Discrimination Act 1995, making websites accessible to disabled people.
Visual Test, originally known as MS-Test, was an automated testing tool for Windows applications developed by Microsoft and later sold to Rational Software.
IP-XACT, also known as IEEE 1685, is an XML format that defines and describes individual, re-usable electronic circuit designs to facilitate their use in creating integrated circuits. IP-XACT was created by the SPIRIT Consortium as a standard to enable automated configuration and integration through tools and evolving into an IEEE standard.
Knowbility is an American non-governmental organization based in Austin, Texas, working to support the independence and empowerment of people with disabilities by promoting the use and improving the availability of accessible information technology. Its mission is to create an inclusive digital world for people of all abilities. Knowbility's signature program is the Accessibility Internet Rally, a web-building competition that brings together volunteer web designers to create accessible websites for nonprofit organizations and artists that serve communities all over the world.
HCL AppScan is a family of desktop and web security testing and monitoring tools, formerly a part of the Rational Software division of IBM. In July 2019, the product was acquired by HCLTech and is currently marketed under HCLSoftware, a product development division of HCLTech.
Rational Dynamic Object Oriented Requirements System (DOORS) (formerly Telelogic DOORS) is a requirements management tool. It is a client–server application, with a Windows-only client and servers for Linux, Windows, and Solaris. There is also a web client, DOORS Web Access.
WebAIM is a non-profit organization based at Utah State University in Logan, Utah. WebAIM has provided web accessibility solutions since 1999. WebAIM's mission is to expand the potential of the web for people with disabilities by providing the knowledge, technical skills, tools, organizational leadership strategies, and vision that empower organizations to make their own content accessible to people with disabilities.