Alice,

I looked at Desque website and it seems more hype than substance on their website.  It is not really clear what rules they use to test accessibility and they don't seem to provide example reports to see results.  They also seem to limit their reports to Section 508 requirements, which are considered minimal accessibility requirements at best. 

UIUC is developing an open source tool called FAE for Functional Web Accessibility Evalautor [1] for web accessibility evaluation that goes way beyond current tools accessibility rules and has had very favorable reviews from web developers across our campus and people who have used the tool thorughout the state and the world.  All of the rules are publically available and shown in the reports and you can try it yourself.

http://fae.cita.uiuc.edu

Recently 7 out 13 higher education institutions in Illinois used FAE to report the Illinois board of Higher Education there State of Web Accessibility [2].

http://www.ibhe.state.il.us/urg/reportlist.asp

We are close to including features that will allow people to use FAE to check web applictions for accessibility in conjunction with the Mozilla/Firefox Accessibility Toolbar.

We would love to work with other institutions and organizations to make these tools more useful for your needs.

Jon

[1] Functional Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool
http://fae.cita.uiuc.edu

[2] IBHE Higher Education Web Accessibility Reports
http://www.ibhe.state.il.us/urg/reportlist.asp

[3] Mozilla/Firefox Web Accessibility Extension
http://firefox.cita.uiuc.edu






---- Original message ----
>Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2006 08:56:51 -0500
>From: Alice Anderson <[log in to unmask]>  
>Subject: Ramp Ascend 6.0 - anyone have real world experience with this?  
>To: [log in to unmask]
>
>All,
><please excuse cross posting>
>
>re: Accessibility Checking Software
>
>Does anyone have experience with Ramp Ascend? and if so, would you  
>please share them?  Thanks in advance...
>
>"Dr. Jim Thatcher, world-renowned author, speaker and web  
>accessibility expert has given Ramp Ascend 6.0 the highest accolade  
>in the industry. In his newest book, Web Compliance: Web  
>Accessibility and Regulatory Compliance, he states, "An important  
>aspect of carrying out these tests was the way the tool developers  
>reacted. All were supportive and responsive, and that was very  
>reassuring. Of course, some were more responsive than others. Two  
>(companies) stand out because not only were they helpful, but they  
>also made significant changes in their products in response to this  
>process. Deque (Ramp Ascend) made major improvements in their  
>accessibility checking tools to end up in first place. Ramp went  
>through two versions during this review process, and its current  
>winning score of 38 out of 40 is for the newest version, Ramp Ascend  
>6.0."
>
>
>
>Alice Anderson, Director
>MIDWEST Alliance for Science,Technology, Engineering and Math
>www.stemmidwest.org
>
>and
>
>Technology Accessibility Program (TAP)
>Division of Information Technology (DoIT)
>University of Wisconsin-Madison
>1210 West Dayton Street (3124)
>Madison, WI 53705
>http://www.doit.wisc.edu/accessibility/
>Telephone: 608.262.2129
>
>
>
>
>
>________________
>smime.p7s (4k bytes)


Jon Gunderson, Ph.D.
Director of IT Accessibility Services
Campus Information Technologies and Educational Services (CITES)
and 
Coordinator of Assistive Communication and Information Technology
Disability Resources and Education Services (DRES)

Voice: (217) 244-5870
Fax: (217) 333-0248
Cell: (217) 714-6313

E-mail: [log in to unmask]

WWW: http://cita.rehab.uiuc.edu/
WWW: https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/jongund/www/