Web accessibility means that people with some type of disability can make use of the Web in the same conditions as the rest of the people. When we talk about web accessibility, we refer to a web design and development that allows these people to perceive, understand, navigate and interact with the Web. Web accessibility also benefits other people, including elderly people whose abilities have declined as a result of age. The Web is an essential resource in human activity: education, employment, government, commerce, health, entertainment and many others benefit of the power of the Web. The aim of this systematic literature review is to analyze the empirical methods of evaluating accessibility to educational websites, disabilities and their errors described in a total of 25 selected studies. The results show that in 20 of the 25 papers, web accessibility was evaluated with automatic tools, in 2 papers it was evaluated with real users and in the other 3 papers with automatic tools, real users and experts. There is also evidence that all the educational websites analyzed in the papers need to correct errors. In conclusion, educational websites do not meet any version of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and their conformance levels. According to the results, the empirical evaluation methods used for web accessibility could be improved by adopting automatic evaluation tools for website construction and manual mechanisms with web accessibility experts. The challenge for educational institutions is to carry out web accessibility projects to comply with WCAG and other web accessibility standards and current laws of educational inclusion. INDEX TERMS Assessment, education, systematic literature review, websites, web page design, Web content accessibility guidelines (WCAG).
The identity and institutional image of universities are presented to the world through their websites. On their websites, universities publish their academic offerings, their mission, their vision, their academic objectives, their achievements, their regulations, their news and all their university work. Hence, the importance of university websites is accessible. The accessibility of university websites has been evaluated several times in the past, but there is no work that has summarized all the evaluations performed to provide a general overview of the situation. Therefore, in this research we have performed a systematic literature review (SLR) to consolidate, analyze, synthesize and interpret the accessibility results of university websites published in 42 papers that have been selected for this study. The methodology used in this SLR was that proposed in Kitchenham’s guidelines, which includes three stages: planning the review, conducting the review and reporting the review. The results present the analysis and synthesis of the evaluations of 9,140 universities in 67 countries. Of these, 38,416 web pages, 91,421 YouTube videos and 28,395 PDF documents were evaluated. Manual methods, methods with automatic tools and the combination of both methods were used for the evaluation. Most websites were evaluated using the ISO/IEC 40500:2012 and Section 508 standards. The accessibility guidelines most commonly violated in the evaluations were: adaptable, compatible, distinguishable, input assistance, keyboard accessible, navigable, predictable, readable and text alternatives. In conclusion, the university websites, YouTube videos and PDF documents analyzed in the 42 papers present important accessibility problems. The main contribution of this SLR is the consolidation of the results of the 42 studies selected to determine the findings and trends in the accessibility of university websites around the world.
The lack of accessibility on websites can result in people with disabilities not accessing information online. Therefore, this research aims to create a process model for continuous web accessibility testing by adapting and customizing three methodologies: Deming cycle (Plan, Do, Check, Act), Website Accessibility Conformance Evaluation Methodology (WCAG-EM), and Total Quality Management. The process model is composed of four phases. The first phase (Plan) allows defining the accessibility problem, its importance, and the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) against which it will be evaluated. In addition, determine the current situation of the websites, the potential causes of accessibility problems, classify the success criteria by principles, guidelines, and levels of conformity, to elaborate the solution plan and the action plan. The second phase (Do) allows the execution of the action plan to correct the accessibility problems. In this phase, we should perform continuous testing with automatic evaluation tools, end-users, and experts to corroborate that the changes have had an effect. The third phase (Check) allows measuring compliance and non-compliance with the defined Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). This phase also explains the reasons for non-compliance. The fourth and last phase (Act) documents the solutions learned for inclusion in future developments. It was tested using a case study to determine the viability of the process model, which allowed corroborating its functionality and applicability. In future work, we plan to adapt the process model to different workgroups, develop accessible mobile applications, and comply with web accessibility in electronic documents.INDEX TERMS Deming cycle, continuous testing, total quality management, WCAG, WCAG-EM, websites, web accessibility.
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