One year older, but not necessarily wiser: an evaluation of homepage accessibility problems over time

Abstract

A large number of users with disabilities use assistive technology devices to browse the web. However, the use of assistive technologies can only be successful when the web sites are developed in such a way that they are compatible with such devices. Guidelines exist for creating accessible web sites. However, they are seldom followed, and current levels of web accessibility are low. Therefore, the question arises as to which is the major cause of inaccessibility, and how accessibility features of web sites evolve over time. A set of 50 web sites has been studied over time to determine if accessibility improves or declines. This research-in-progress paper presents a comparison of the results obtained in 2002 and 2003. Such a comparison leads to the conclusion that, in the time period of 1 year, the 50 web sites have actually become more inaccessible. Implications for developers, webmasters, and educators are also discussed in the paper.

Homepage not enough when evaluating web site accessibility

“…These results demonstrate that evaluating the homepage alone is not sufficient when evaluating web pages for accessibility. Previous studies using only the homepage in the analysis (Davis, 2002;Flowers et al, 1999;Lazar et al, 2003;Lazar and Greenidge, 2006;Loiacono and McCoy, 2006;Klein et al, 2003;Paris, 2006;Spindler, 2002;Yu, 2002) may not have shown the whole picture of accessibility. However, the WAB scores for levels 1, 2, and 3 of these web sites are highly correlated and previous Homepage not enough studies that included more pages than just the homepage (Diaper and Worman, 2003;Sloan et al, 2002;Thompson, 2003), if even a limited number of deeper pages (Jackson-Sanborn et al, 2002;Hackett et al, 2004), may have provided better estimates of the accessibility of the web sites under evaluation.…”

Determining the impact of computer frustration on the mood of blind users browsing the web

“…Furthermore, webmasters and designers are always updating their web pages, and often do not consider accessibility in their updates. Over time, many web sites actually increase the number of accessibility violations, rather than reducing the number of violations [4,12]. These factors all increase the importance of studying how computer frustrations, which are clearly present, impact on blind users browsing the web.…”

Evaluation of web accessibility in China: changes from 2009 to 2013

“…Another study found that the average accessibility level of social work education websites increased significantly from 2003 to 2008 [14]. On the other hand, some other longitudinal evaluation studies found web accessibility to be less accessible as webpage complexity increases [11,12,15].…”

“…Given the fact that many websites fail to achieve web accessibility, a phenomenon that has been widely revealed by many researchers [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12], there is likelihood that Chinese websites may have major accessibility problems; however, there is a lack of research into the accessibility of Chinese websites. This paper thus aims to provide an overview of the status of web accessibility in China according to two evaluations, one in 2009 and the other in 2013.…”