16,814 research outputs found
Determination and evaluation of web accessibility
The Web is the most pervasive collaborative
technology in widespread use today; however,
access to the web and its many applications cannot
be taken for granted. Web accessibility encompasses
a variety of concerns ranging from societal,
political, and economic to individual, physical, and
intellectual through to the purely technical. Thus,
there are many perspectives from which web
accessibility can be understood and evaluated. In
order to discuss these concerns and to gain a better
understanding of web accessibility, an accessibility
framework is proposed using as its base a layered
evaluation framework from Computer Supported
Co-operative Work research and the ISO standard,
ISO/IEC 9126 on software quality. The former is
employed in recognition of the collaborative nature
of the web and its importance in facilitating
communication. The latter is employed to refine and
extend the technical issues and to highlight the need
for considering accessibility from the viewpoint of
the web developer and maintainer as well as the web
user. A technically inaccessible web is unlikely to be
evolved over time. A final goal of the accessibility
framework is to provide web developers and
maintainers with a practical basis for considering
web accessibility through the development of a set of
accessibility factors associated with each identified
layer
Recommended from our members
Foregrounding accessibility for user experience design
textI am interested in creating generative tools and techniques for designing accessible user experiences for end users. As a user experience designer, I am working on embracing the web accessibility standards and guidelines and including them from the beginning of the User Experience (UX) design process. My projects are directed at facilitating design students and professionals to understand two things: that the broad concept of web accessibility is important, and how they can embed web accessibility into the UX design process at a very early stage. To do this, I used different media (website, posters and videos etc.) to create awareness and educate designers in an interesting, simple and engaging way. In this report, I will discuss the definition and role of accessible design, identify limitations in existing tools and methods, and demonstrate how future designers might research, prototype, analyze, and implement their designs for all users.Desig
Investigating the appropriateness and relevance of mobile web accessibility guidelines
The Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) develop and maintain guidelines for making the web more accessible to people with disabilities. WCAG 2.0 and the MWBP 1.0 are internationally regarded as the industry standard guidelines for web accessibility. Mobile testing sessions conducted by AbilityNet document issues raised by users in a report format, relating issues to guidelines wherever possible. This paper presents the results of a preliminary investigation that examines how effectively and easily these issues can be related by experts to the guidelines provided by WCAG 2.0 and MWBP 1.0. Copyright 2014 ACM
On the testability of WCAG 2.0 for beginners
Web accessibility for people with disabilities is a highly visible area of research in the field of ICT accessibility, including many policy activities across many countries. The commonly accepted guidelines for web accessibility (WCAG 1.0) were published in 1999 and have been extensively used by designers, evaluators and legislators. W3C-WAI published a new version of these guidelines (WCAG 2.0) in December 2008. One of the main goals of WCAG 2.0 was testability, that is, WCAG 2.0 should be either machine testable or reliably human testable. In this paper we present an educational experiment performed during an intensive web accessibility course. The goal of the experiment was to assess the testability of the 25 level-A success criteria of WCAG 2.0 by beginners. To do this, the students had to manually evaluate the accessibility of the same web page. The result was that only eight success criteria could be considered to be reliably human testable when evaluators were beginners. We also compare our experiment with a similar study published recently. Our work is not a conclusive experiment, but it does suggest some parts of WCAG 2.0 to which special attention should be paid when training accessibility evaluator
A Story About Digitalization and Those Left Out : A quantitative study exploring the effect of digitalization on web accessibility.
This thesis examines the influence of digitalization on web accessibility for people with
disabilities (PwD). The central research question addressed is: "How does digitalization
affect web accessibility for people with disabilities?" The hypothesis proposed in this study
is that web accessibility decreases as digitalization advances, irrespective of legislation and
awareness regarding the accessibility gap. The hypothesis is grounded in the observation that
visual aspects are prioritized during web development, potentially overlooking the
importance of web accessibility. This is an important topic of research since nearly 20% of
the world's population (World Health Organization 2023), have a disability and almost
everyone will experience disability at some point in their life (World Health Organization
n.d.).
Utilizing quantitative methods to conduct an empirical test this research evaluated the web
accessibility of 49 Canadian Universities over a 15-year time period, from 2008 to 2022.
Data collection utilized online sources such as the Wayback Machine.
The research findings reveal that during periods of web advancements, there is an initial
increase in web accessibility issues, validating the negative impact of digitalization on web
accessibility. However, over time, there is a noticeable reduction in these issues, indicating
an overall improvement in web accessibility. One significant factor negatively impacting
web accessibility identified in this study is, the visual advancements brought about by
digitalization. The effectiveness of legislation in enhancing web accessibility was
investigated, focusing on compliance deadlines. The study demonstrates that compliance
deadlines do not lead to increased accessibility on the web, meaning legislation fails to
effectively improve web accessibility.
Overall, this research highlights the immediate inaccessibility of the web resulting from
digitalization. These findings emphasize the ongoing need to prioritize web accessibility
amidst digital advancements. From these findings, stakeholders can work towards a more
inclusive and accessible web environment for PwD.nhhma
Regulatory Compliance and Web Accessibility of UK Parliament Sites
This research seeks to review whether web accessibility and disability laws lead to strong compliance among UK e-government web sites. This study samples 130 sites of the UK members of Parliament using an online accessibility testing tool and determines if the site design complies with disability laws and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). Awareness is raised about issues disabled users face when attempting to use UK e-government sites. A discussion of UK and international disability law is reviewed in light of web accessibilty: the UK’s Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) of 1995 and the UN Treaty on the Rights of the Disabled. Although these mandates aim to provide equality in access to web sites for people with disabilities, the results of this study show that total openness of these sites is not widespread and the mere existance of laws does not guarantee compliance
- …