Watchfire’s decision to limit the number of requests to the Bobby accessibility validation tool is proving a hinderance to many developers. However, Bobby is not the only free online validation tool available.
WebAIM have released an alpha version of WAVE 3.0, an online tool that provides visual feedback to web developers. The tool displays the tested site with its original design, inserting markers for existing accessibility features such as access-keys and alt text as well as warning of non-valid markup. Testing can be made for both WAI and Section 508 compliance.
WAVE also has a few more tricks such as detecting “suspicious alt text”. Examples include alt text that is very lenghthy and would better suit a long description, or non-sensical text such as “image.jpg”. WAVE could well be a worthy alternative to waiting for Bobby.