Description from extension meta
Evaluate web accessibility within your browser.
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Description from store
WAVE is a web accessibility evaluation tool developed by WebAIM.org. It provides visual feedback about the accessibility of your web content by injecting icons and indicators into your page. No automated tool can tell you if your page is accessible, but WAVE facilitates human evaluation and educates about accessibility issues. All analysis is done entirely within the Chrome browser allowing secure valuation of intranet, local, password protected, and other sensitive web pages.
To run a WAVE report, simply click on the WAVE icon to the right of your browser address bar, or select "WAVE this page" from the context menu.
WAVE errors align with WCAG 2.2 failures. The WAVE interface facilitates human evaluation of many other aspects of accessibility and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and Section 508 compliance.
Version 3.2.7.2 (September 2024) fixes a bug that disallowed checking of local files and suppresses errors in some cases where role="presentation" is present.
Version 3.2.7.0 (August 2024) adds compatibility with Manifest v3. Inputs with aria-disabled=true are no longer considered for contrast checking.
Version 3.2.6.0 (August 2024) adds support for contrast checking when foreground alpha/opacity is defined. The Contrast sidebar tools are updated to support foreground alpha. Also numerous minor bug fixes and improvements.
Version 3.2.5.3 (February 2024) fixes numerous minor bugs and adds testing refinements. Some hidden inputs are no longer incorrectly flagged as not labeled.
Version 3.2.4.4 (October 2023) fixes a few minor bugs with testing hidden content and with the sidebar contrast tools.
Version 3.2.3.9 (June 2023) removes the warning message on UserWay pages due to them removing code that changes page content when the WAVE extension is activated.
Version 3.2.3.8 (June 2023) includes numerous accessibility test enhancements, several minor bug fixes, and simplification of the contrast checking tools. Users are informed that WAVE results may be manipulated on pages that utilize UserWay or accessiBe overlays.
Version 3.2.3 (March 2023) includes several minor bug fixes. A previous update to test for contrast errors in hidden elements has been reverted. While this was useful for finding contrast errors in drop-down menus, tab panels, dialog windows, etc., identification of errors in hidden elements caused user confusion and, in some rare cases, false positives.
Version 3.2 (December 2022) includes over 100 bug fixes and performance enhancements. The extension no longer utilizes jQuery, resulting in faster testing and better compatibility with a variety of pages. A new Navigation Order panel is available that shows the navigation order, element roles, and accessible names (what is read by a screen reader) for all navigable elements.
Version 3.1.6 (October 2021) includes numerous bug fixes and test rule enhancements for better testing contrast (filters, background images, and other complex color definitions are better handled), document language (IANA-defined language values are now tested), empty links and buttons (better ARIA support for accessible name computations), broken ARIA references, etc., etc. Performance and accessibility has been improved.
Version 3.1.3 (November 2020) includes performance enhancements and fixes several minor bugs, including fixes for multiple alerts for some pseudo-lists and disabled controls being incorrectly flagged for contrast failures.
Version 3.1.2 (October 2020) fixes several minor bugs, including with the Structure tab sometimes incorrectly showing no structure, and improves performance and accessibility testing reliability.
Version 3.1 (September 2020) includes new accessibility tests (region, figure, possible list, select element missing label, and image with title), improved contrast checking, expanded lang attribute value checking, and numerous other bug fixes and improvements.
Version 3.0.9 (July 2020) includes numerous bug fixes, improved accessibility, and improved color contrast checking including fewer false positives and expanded contrast checking for form inputs.
Latest reviews
- (2025-06-12) Deborah “ForwardRolling” Vick: I do not get an option to run the wave product. When selecting the evaluation tool we are brought back to where we downloaded the product or the trial one. However, there is no way to run the program
- (2025-01-28) BG: Doesn't work in Brave
- (2024-11-26) Ganapati Bhat: Very good extension.
- (2024-09-25) Rüdiger Dalchow: Love the exntension, so helpfull
- (2024-05-06) Vladimir Dabic: Amazing extension, I'm loving it!
- (2024-01-10) Benjamin Porter: Really handy dev tool for checking accessibility of a page. There's also a firefox version
- (2023-12-02) Robson Mafra: The WAVE plugin is excelente and align with WCAG! Give all the basic validations all developers should check and give instructions how to improve. I recommend for all developers, specially for people starting with accessibility.
- (2023-03-08) Jared Reid: This does not work. I was unable to highlight anything after making sure it was enabled with permissions, and trying it in both an updated Chrome and Edge browser separately. Nothing gets highlighted or saved, even on a Google search page.
- (2023-03-08) Jared Reid: This does not work. I was unable to highlight anything after making sure it was enabled with permissions, and trying it in both an updated Chrome and Edge browser separately. Nothing gets highlighted or saved, even on a Google search page.
- (2023-01-13) Teri Brooks: I added a bunch of similar extensions and none of them worked properly, or they only provided some info but required you to sign up to get the "full" experience. But this one is fantastic and provides all the details I need in an easy to understand layout. It finds stuff that other extensions missed, and it's quick and doesn't slow down the browser. Being able to toggle between showing the styles or hiding them is a nice touch. My only issue is that by using this extension, I give them permission to read my browser history. What on earth do they need that for? That's a bit of a concern.
- (2023-01-13) Teri Brooks: I added a bunch of similar extensions and none of them worked properly, or they only provided some info but required you to sign up to get the "full" experience. But this one is fantastic and provides all the details I need in an easy to understand layout. It finds stuff that other extensions missed, and it's quick and doesn't slow down the browser. Being able to toggle between showing the styles or hiding them is a nice touch. My only issue is that by using this extension, I give them permission to read my browser history. What on earth do they need that for? That's a bit of a concern.
- (2022-10-25) Tony Langford: It's a pretty useful tool, but there are some annoyances that make it hard to work with: 1) On the details pane you can check and uncheck the type of errors/warnings to show, we are doing our first round of testing an improvements and so want to focus on just Errors/Contrast Errors. But these settings do not persist, each page it's open extension, details tab, uncheck all these warning/aria sections.... allow these settings to persist please! 2) It's static. We have a React JS UI. The page is changing as the user uses it, the extension however only looks at the page at the point the extension loads. So you have to turn it off, wait for the page to reload, make sure its back at the new state you want it, and then turn it back on.... Just takes far too long. 3) It messes up styles, things get shifted off the page which makes it difficult to see certain problems
- (2022-10-25) Tony Langford: It's a pretty useful tool, but there are some annoyances that make it hard to work with: 1) On the details pane you can check and uncheck the type of errors/warnings to show, we are doing our first round of testing an improvements and so want to focus on just Errors/Contrast Errors. But these settings do not persist, each page it's open extension, details tab, uncheck all these warning/aria sections.... allow these settings to persist please! 2) It's static. We have a React JS UI. The page is changing as the user uses it, the extension however only looks at the page at the point the extension loads. So you have to turn it off, wait for the page to reload, make sure its back at the new state you want it, and then turn it back on.... Just takes far too long. 3) It messes up styles, things get shifted off the page which makes it difficult to see certain problems
- (2022-08-03) Ermes Mox: Slow, old, with a lot of issues. It's time to update and improve this tool.
- (2022-08-03) Ermes Mox: Slow, old, with a lot of issues. It's time to update and improve this tool.
- (2022-05-25) Mitchell Christensen: Great tool. Thank you for providing such a useful tool for accessibility
- (2022-05-25) Mitchell Christensen: Great tool. Thank you for providing such a useful tool for accessibility
- (2022-05-21) Rocky Kev: Used this to update and ensure accessibility for hundreds of sites.
- (2022-05-21) Rocky Kev: Used this to update and ensure accessibility for hundreds of sites.
- (2022-02-09) Kim Tan: Can't seem to get it to work on the latest version of chrome :(
- (2022-02-09) Kim Tan: Can't seem to get it to work on the latest version of chrome :(
- (2022-02-02) Ferran Buireu: Fácil de usar y con reportes detallados.
- (2021-12-20) Arron D: This used to work for local html files. It no longer does? Edit: You need to enable file access in the extension settings. This is an extremely helpful tool.
- (2021-12-20) Arron D: This used to work for local html files. It no longer does? Edit: You need to enable file access in the extension settings. This is an extremely helpful tool.
- (2021-11-23) James Kuffner: The wave results sits over part of the web page being assessed and therefore any errors on the page are hidden by the results. Desaturate page resizes the page to fit next to the wave results which is great and the normal view should do the same.
- (2021-11-23) James Kuffner: The wave results sits over part of the web page being assessed and therefore any errors on the page are hidden by the results. Desaturate page resizes the page to fit next to the wave results which is great and the normal view should do the same.
- (2021-11-05) Ryan: Useful tool, and at an unbeatable price point of 'free'. But there's no way to output errors - even a raw txt file with error type and the line of code would be fine, not looking for anything fancy. UI is tucked off to one side, so once you have more than a handful of errors it's very easy to get lost in a sea of repetitive and small error indicators. Crashes Chrome not infrequently when making use of the Code view with styles turned on.
- (2021-11-05) Ryan: Useful tool, and at an unbeatable price point of 'free'. But there's no way to output errors - even a raw txt file with error type and the line of code would be fine, not looking for anything fancy. UI is tucked off to one side, so once you have more than a handful of errors it's very easy to get lost in a sea of repetitive and small error indicators. Crashes Chrome not infrequently when making use of the Code view with styles turned on.
- (2021-10-25) Marcelo Quintino da Silva: Not a good tool. The UI is poor and confusing. The results can sometimes overlay the page content makin impossible to find the problem. It does not refresh/reassess the page when you navigate thru the websites.
- (2021-10-25) Marcelo Quintino da Silva: Not a good tool. The UI is poor and confusing. The results can sometimes overlay the page content makin impossible to find the problem. It does not refresh/reassess the page when you navigate thru the websites.
- (2021-08-02) Freddy Jey: It's great but it misses a very important feature: The ability to simply rerun the accessiblity check without having to reload the full web app. It becomes very cumbersome to test all combinations of your app state when you have to reload the web app every time you want to rerun a test.. It would be nice if the sidebar simply had a "RECHECK" button.
- (2021-08-02) Freddy Jey: It's great but it misses a very important feature: The ability to simply rerun the accessiblity check without having to reload the full web app. It becomes very cumbersome to test all combinations of your app state when you have to reload the web app every time you want to rerun a test.. It would be nice if the sidebar simply had a "RECHECK" button.
- (2020-10-27) Dario Alpern: According to https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/Understanding/contrast-minimum.html , an inactive button has no contrast requirement, but the tool shows a Very Low Contrast error in an inactive button in my Web site. This appears to be an error in this Chrome extension.
- (2020-10-27) Dario Alpern: According to https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/Understanding/contrast-minimum.html , an inactive button has no contrast requirement, but the tool shows a Very Low Contrast error in an inactive button in my Web site. This appears to be an error in this Chrome extension.
- (2020-10-12) Amity Web: This is great, I found it when I was blocked from their website due to limits, I didn't know this existed Its much faster than using their website. The only issue I have, which would gain it 5 stars if this was addressed, is when you navigate to a new page or refresh the page the tool is not enabled again, you have to click the plugin icon every time, so it can be annoying. Ideally it should have an enable permanent feature so it will stay active and check pages as you navigate a site or refresh pages. That would be ideal. Thanks
- (2020-10-12) Amity Web: This is great, I found it when I was blocked from their website due to limits, I didn't know this existed Its much faster than using their website. The only issue I have, which would gain it 5 stars if this was addressed, is when you navigate to a new page or refresh the page the tool is not enabled again, you have to click the plugin icon every time, so it can be annoying. Ideally it should have an enable permanent feature so it will stay active and check pages as you navigate a site or refresh pages. That would be ideal. Thanks
- (2020-08-03) Adam Reece: Room for improvement. Very annoying that every page that gets validated you have to deselect all of the valid aspects. When this is turned off it should remain off. -- We need to know what to fix, not what's already good.
- (2020-08-03) Adam Reece: Room for improvement. Very annoying that every page that gets validated you have to deselect all of the valid aspects. When this is turned off it should remain off. -- We need to know what to fix, not what's already good.
- (2020-02-08) Atoall web accessibility tool for billion disabled: Your domain names are 1 language, in the world of 200 languages, Apply https://Atoall.com/ on your websites big government departments are using it check https://mhrd.gov.in you can see icon of Atoall with FaceBook, Twitter, YouTube icon.
- (2020-01-07) Rob Wise: This app has recently been updated and I have to say that it has brought massive improvements in the UX and performance of the tool. It's much more impressive than it was a year or so ago, and it has a lot more features packed in. It's important to note that genuine accessibility is not just a checkbox- making your site useful without javascript is not a trivial task, and really has to be done with a human touch. However this tool is an excellent first step in pointing out the basics. Developers note, sometimes things like debug overlays (like django/flask ones) can get warnings flagged and hidden which makes them sometimes hard to find- but there's nothing this tool can do about that- it's inspecting the entire window.
- (2020-01-07) Rob Wise: This app has recently been updated and I have to say that it has brought massive improvements in the UX and performance of the tool. It's much more impressive than it was a year or so ago, and it has a lot more features packed in. It's important to note that genuine accessibility is not just a checkbox- making your site useful without javascript is not a trivial task, and really has to be done with a human touch. However this tool is an excellent first step in pointing out the basics. Developers note, sometimes things like debug overlays (like django/flask ones) can get warnings flagged and hidden which makes them sometimes hard to find- but there's nothing this tool can do about that- it's inspecting the entire window.
- (2019-12-10) Darren Sweet (Sweet Life Adventure): Recently I have used many different accessibility checkers, all are useful but many are not efficient to use. Wave shows me clearly what the issues are, shows me markers visually on my own page and provides a clear description of the issue and what to do about it.
- (2019-12-10) Darren Sweet (Sweet Life Adventure): Recently I have used many different accessibility checkers, all are useful but many are not efficient to use. Wave shows me clearly what the issues are, shows me markers visually on my own page and provides a clear description of the issue and what to do about it.
- (2019-11-28) Remi Dijoux: bof
- (2019-11-22) Andreas Schieferbein: As a fullstack developer, this is the first time that the topic "Accessibility and UIs (React/Spa)" comes into contact. A cover of Specs is to be considered, this Tool makes the entrance into this not quite simple topic for me clearly easier. My thanks go to the developers, very useful.
- (2019-11-22) Andreas Schieferbein: As a fullstack developer, this is the first time that the topic "Accessibility and UIs (React/Spa)" comes into contact. A cover of Specs is to be considered, this Tool makes the entrance into this not quite simple topic for me clearly easier. My thanks go to the developers, very useful.
- (2019-11-04) Andy Layman: Where did the ability to filter down to WCAG AA 2.0 go? What standard is the new redesign using as the "default"?
- (2019-11-04) Andy Layman: Where did the ability to filter down to WCAG AA 2.0 go? What standard is the new redesign using as the "default"?
- (2019-11-01) Daryl Knight: The new update is really useful. It breaks the page layout less than the old version, explains what's wrong - WHY it's important and how to fix it. Thank you.
- (2019-11-01) Daryl Knight: The new update is really useful. It breaks the page layout less than the old version, explains what's wrong - WHY it's important and how to fix it. Thank you.