tota11y review
A free visual aid for inspecting accessibility on one webpage at a time.
Reviewed by iTechGuides Editors · Editorial team · Updated Oct 2026
tota11y is Khan Academy’s open-source accessibility visualization toolkit for developers and testers reviewing web pages. It runs in a page through a bookmarklet or script, adding visual explanations for common accessibility concerns. The tool suits solo developers, small teams, and larger organizations that need a lightweight aid during development, especially when a quick visual check is more useful than a full audit workflow.
Its central strength is the set of focused overlays. Separate visualizations help inspect heading structure, form labels, alternative text, link text, color contrast, and landmarks. This makes findings visible in the page context, which can help reviewers understand how structure and content appear together. Setup is comparatively light because the tool is distributed as a bookmarklet or script rather than as a separate browser extension. The published feature set is designed to support human review, so it works best as part of an accessibility checking process rather than as the sole method.
The trade-off is a narrow, manual workflow. tota11y does not provide automated scanning, recurring monitoring, or issue tracking, and each inspection covers a single page. Teams needing reports across many URLs, centralized remediation queues, or continuous monitoring should choose a broader accessibility platform instead. tota11y is a good fit when the priority is free, open-source visualization for targeted page reviews; it is less suitable when accessibility work requires managed governance, portfolio-wide coverage, or automated detection.
tota11y pros and cons
- Where it wins
- Free and open-source for visual accessibility inspection
- Overlays cover headings, labels, alt text, links, contrast, and landmarks
- Runs as a bookmarklet or script during development
- Where it doesn't
- Manual inspection only; it does not perform automated scanning
- Limited to a single page per inspection
- No built-in issue tracking or browser extension
tota11y fact sheet, pricing and score →
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