Validation, as understood by ACTF, is the process of testing the degree to which the elements of a graphical structure conform to a specified set of rules or criteria. Rules might specify restrictions on various properties of elements, relations between elements, or other facets of the structure. ACTF offers a generic validation mechanism, meaning that any set of rules or criteria that can be expressed in the ACTF markup language can be used as the basis for a validation process.
ACTF specializes the validation process in two important ways:
Thus, if you wish to validate Java GUI-based applications or web content (including some dynamic web content) for accessibility using the aforementioned checklists, ACTF is ready to use. If, on the other hand, you wish to validate other structures or content according to other sets of guidelines or criteria, that work is beyond the scope of this overview. (Future releases will support more thorough documentation of this aspect of ACTF.) This document will focus on writing validation documents. See the ACTF Validation API javadoc for discussions of the necessary interfaces.