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2013, Journal of Computer Science Technology
The Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) defines the guidelines to facilitate access for people with disabilities to ICT. This article presents a proposal to promote the unification and improvement of the works of two authors, combining the procedures and considerations after the evaluation of some web sites Northeast Argentina (NEA).
2002
Abstract 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.
This paper reports a preliminary study evaluating accessibility and usability of a Brazilian government website-the national digital catalogue of assistive technology (CNPTA). Although since 2004 e-government information should be broadly accessible, several studies indicate that web accessibility has not been accomplished in many government websites. This study is part of a research project that analyses whether this negative outcome replicates on government websites intended for people with disabilities. The website was assessed by automated testing and the results were compared to the outcomes from user testing. The paper discusses the findings compared with past studies and not only proposes specific aspects to enhance the website, but also it outlines several points to be considered in the next steps of the research project, as well as in other research that considers web accessibility and usability for blind people.
Proceedings of the International Conference on Information Technology & Systems (ICITS 2018), 2018
Checking the accessibility of a website is a significant challenge for accessibility experts. Users who suffer from age-related changes, such as low vision, poor hearing, and diminishing motor skills, among others, have problems accessing the services offered by the web. Currently, there are qualitative and quantitative methods to check if a website is accessible. Most methods apply automatic tools because they are low cost, but they do not present an ideal solution. Instead, heuristic methods require manual support that will help the expert to assess accessibility by establishing severity ranges. This research used a modification of the Barrier Walkthrough method proposed by Giorgio Brajnik considering the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1. The modification consisted of including persistence to determine the severity of an accessibility barrier. This method enabled the measurement of the accessibility of websites to test a new heuristic process and to obtain sample data for analysis. The method was applied to 40 websites, including those of 30 universities in Latin America, according to the Webometrics ranking, and 10 websites among the most visited, according to Alexa ranking. With this heuristic method, the evaluators concluded that although a website is in a high-ranking position, this does not imply that it is accessible and inclusive. However, the manual method takes too long, and it is therefore too costly to solve accessibility problems. This research can serve as a starting point for future studies related to web accessibility heuristics. INDEX TERMS Accessibility, assessment, barrier walkthrough, evaluation, heuristic method, low vision, website, web content accessibility guidelines (WCAG) 2.1.
2006
The Web is becoming more important for communication and for data access. Unfortunately, not all Web sites are accessible for all users. Web accessibility is concerned with overcoming the barriers that users with disabilities face when they try to access information on Web sites. Currently, for disabled users, the Web presents many barriers that make it diffiult to use. These
ATBU Journal of Science, Technology and Education, 2021
The continuous evolution of web technologies since the advent of the World Wide Web (www) has transcendentally enhanced the flexibility of interactions with increasingly varied and resourceful interfaces that supports dynamic web content. However, despite the increase in web interactivity, people with disabilities are still finding it difficult to access websites, due to non-compliant of most websites to the W3C guidelines. This research was carried out to evaluate websites' conformance to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. Ten websites were selected at random from different fields such as education, business, industry, and entertainment; which were evaluated using the TAW tool. The evaluation was based on the four general principles of WCAG 2.0: Operable, understandable, robust, and perceivable. Our finding discovered a lack of guidelines conformity by most if not all the selected websites.
It is the era of information technology and corporations around the world opting web technologies for electronic services. The official websites are now under the use of a diverse population for the purpose of services and product information retrieval. Disabled persons are the part of this society but they are mostly ignored when web projects in corporations and organizations are planned and developed. If this practice of software development is kept continuing then disabled persons would not take the advantage in this electronic era. This study evaluates the websites of top twenty terrestrial mobile phone network operators around the world (top twenty were selected on basis of number of subscribers) using accessibility evaluation tools based on World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) web accessibility standards. Functional Accessibility Evaluator and Total Validator are the tools which are used for the evaluation process. The results shows that most of the web sites are not develope...
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2014
The expansion of the internet has become apparent in recent years, both by the number of users, and by the number of services available on the network. Considering such an expansion it is essential that the content be accessible to all people, regardless their abilities or different disabilities. Thus, it is necessary that IT professionals dedicate time and effort in planning accessible online solutions. In this paper, we proposed the Homero framework in order to support the development of accessible interface layer of web applications. Developed using the PHP language, the Homero framework automates the generation of web pages in accordance with guidelines defined in Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0. In order to provide evidence of the quality of web applications generated using the framework, an empirical study was conducted. The results showed the effectiveness of Homero to assist the development of accessible web applications, achieving level AAA in automatically detectable WCAG 2.0 success criteria.
2015
The constant evolution of all Web related technologies, and the considerable adoption of these everyday life, has brought to the discussion table the ability of these Web technologies and Web contents to become accessible to all, including those with some sort of disability. During the past years, a research project has been executed in order to, not only give the Web accessibility topic more visibility within our society, but also to achieve indicators on the levels of accessibility presented by privately held company websites. Considering the growing need to rapidly achieve Web accessibility indicators, whose complexity has significantly increased, the research team inherent to the referred project developed a software platform, entitled accessibility evaluations to multiple websites in simultaneous. It also has the ability to analyze and publish the results inherent to those evaluations, and to allow its users to create their own analysis and dashboards. In this paper, we present...
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2013
The XXI Century society has developed a drive for Information and the Web, as one of the extremely important technologies of our times, represents the main channel to access it. As a result of this, one can perceive that the Web, and the inherent websites, must be accessible to all, in order to maintain the imperative social equality. Despite the legal requirements to the Portuguese Web content accessibility levels, in effect since 1999, the existent studies that focused on assessing those same levels of accessibility reported that the Portuguese websites, in their majority, were not compliant with the existent standards. In mid-2007 we started, within our research group and in partnership with both UMIC-Knowledge Society Agency and APDSI-Association for the Promotion and Development of the Information Society, a Web accessibility barometer. The goal of this barometer has been assessing the accessibility levels of the Portuguese websites, creating recommendations-for both the organizations and the civil society-towards the improvement of the referred websites, and publicly presenting the achieved results. One of the Portuguese enterprises that is adopting the accessibility standards into its public procurement platform anoGov is ANO. This company established a research project alongside UTAD University in order to achieve technical know-how and good practices that allowed them to develop accessible and usable Web content.
Purpose -This paper aims to provide knowledge about methods used to evaluate the accessibility of Iranian web sites through a real research environment. Design/methodology/approach -The main theoretical base of this article is that almost all research conducted to evaluate the accessibility of web sites has used only one of three methods (namely manual, automatic and users' experiences). However, it seems that using a combination of these three methods is actually necessary. Consequently, taking a critical approach this article examines 18 Iranian ministerial web sites using the three methods. Findings -Findings in both documents and evaluative studies show that each of the methods has deficits and it is necessary to employ a combination of the methods in order to conduct a reliable accessibility assessment. The different rankings of ministerial web sites in various evaluations have confirmed this view. Originality/value -Identifying the advantages and disadvantages of the three methods and employing them in real research environments to assess the accessibility of ministerial web sites has been a useful exercise. The work can not only be a starting point for further discussions on the reliability of accessibility evaluation methods, but can also be applied to other types of web site.
International Journal of Web Portals, 2000
The objective of this study is to investigate the current accessibility initiatives applied to the Web and identify its main characteristics and trends. The method used was a literature review focused on work in the last twenty years in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Canada and Brazil, ranked according to their approaches, in six lines of study. As a result, points out the lack of studies that allow effective analysis of the accessibility of websites, and methods for continuous improvement of technical standards and recommendations. It follows, showing the application of usability metrics by Nielsen and ISO-9241 and the incorporation of research models of information behavior seeking for assessment of gaps in accessibility.
It is the era of information technology and corporations around the world opting web technologies for electronic services. The official websites are now under the use of a diverse population for the purpose of services and product information retrieval. Disabled persons are the part of this society but they are mostly ignored when web projects in corporations and organizations are planned and developed. If this practice of software development is kept continuing then disabled persons would not take the advantage in this electronic era. This study evaluates the websites of top twenty terrestrial mobile phone network operators around the world (top twenty were selected on basis of number of subscribers) using accessibility evaluation tools based on World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) web accessibility standards. Functional Accessibility Evaluator and Total Validator are the tools which are used for the evaluation process. The results shows that most of the web sites are not developed according to the accessibility standards developed by World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) for disabled persons. In the light of these results, recommendations are made to improve the accessibility of these websites for disable persons.
Journal of Usability Studies, 2010
The current set of tools and specifications for ensuring web accessibility require expert knowledge and often have a highly technical orientation, with the consequence that it is not very clear how, or even when, to make use of them. In an attempt to tackle this problem, this paper reviews the types of tools and specifications available and proposes a simple and practical methodology for web accessibility evaluation that demonstrates how these tools and specifications could be used. The proposed methodology proposes methods and processes for reaching and maintaining web accessibility, and consists of the following phases: (a) identification of user requirements and setting up of accessibility goals, (b) web accessibility evaluation and redesign process, and (c) establishment and follow-up of accessibility policy. Further, in order to illustrate step (b), an example of web accessibility evaluation is described, where the domain is contemporary scientific publishing web sites. The work presented in this paper reports on issues that need to be considered by human-computer interaction (HCI) researchers, interaction design practitioners, and usability professionals for inclusive web design and are complementary to web usability engineering.
2009
Abstract. This paper aims at contributing to the evaluation of web accessibility and thus promoting design for all, considering the design process as an iterative process containing evaluation as a fundamental component. More specifically, the paper: 1) rethinks Web Accessibility Evaluation notion and its abstract requirements, 2) investigates the usability of W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 1.0 and WCAG 2.0), and 3) proposes an approach for an evaluation of the usability of accessibility guidelines.
2007
Abstract This paper presents a framework and system to evaluate the accessibility of web pages according to the individual requirements of users with disabilities. These requirements not only consist of users' abilities, but also users' assistive technologies and the delivery context. In order to ascertain interoperability with other software components, user requirements are specified taking advantage of the extensibility of the W3C CC/PP recommendation and other feature-specification vocabularies.
WORLD WIDE WEBINTERNET AND WEB INFORMATION SYSTEMS, 2012
Efforts to improve Web accessibility are intensifying around the world. For example, in June 2004, the Japanese Standards Association established JIS X 8341-3 as an official Japanese industrial standard for information accessibility. When a company constructs an accessible Website as part of a Web accessibility enhancement program, it should not only conform to JIS X 8341-3 but also provide a support system for organized corporate activities, standardize its procedures for Website construction, and use guidelines that are consistent with standards in Japan and other countries. The Fujitsu Group started enhancing the accessibility of its Internet Websites in 2002 as part of its brand development project. It enjoyed high commendations when it received a 2003 Good Design Award and won first prize in the Usability Ranking of Corporate Sites of the Nikkei Personal Computing magazine. This paper describes the Fujitsu organized activities for enhancing Web accessibility that yielded these results and the Fujitsu system for realizing accessible Websites.
Information, 2020
With the growth of e-services in the past two decades, the concept of web accessibility has been given attention to ensure that every individual can benefit from these services without any barriers. Web accessibility is considered one of the main factors that should be taken into consideration while developing webpages. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG 2.0) have been developed to guide web developers to ensure that web contents are accessible for all users, especially disabled users. Many automatic tools have been developed to check the compliance of websites with accessibility guidelines such as WCAG 2.0 and to help web developers and content creators with designing webpages without barriers for disabled people. Despite the popularity of accessibility evaluation tools in practice, there is no systematic way to compare the performance of web accessibility evaluators. This paper first presents two novel frameworks. The first one is proposed to compare the performance of...
Disability and Rehabilitation, 2005
A combined objective-oriented and subjective-oriented method for evaluating accessibility and usability of web pages for students with disability was tested. The objective-oriented approach is devoted to verifying the conformity of interfaces to standard rules stated by national and international organizations responsible for web technology standardization, such as W3C. Conversely, the subjective-oriented approach allows assessing how the final users interact with the artificial system, accessing levels of user satisfaction based on personal factors and environmental barriers. Five kinds of measurements were applied as objectiveoriented and subjective-oriented tests. Objective-oriented evaluations were performed on the Help Desk web page for students with disability, included in the website of a large Italian state university. Subjective-oriented tests were administered to 19 students labeled as disabled on the basis of their own declaration at the University enrolment: 13 students were tested by means of the SUMI test and six students by means of the 'Cooperative evaluation'. Objective-oriented and subjective-oriented methods highlighted different and sometimes conflicting results. Both methods have pointed out much more consistency regarding levels of accessibility than of usability. Since usability is largely affected by individual differences in user's own (dis)abilities, subjective-oriented measures underscored the fact that blind students encountered much more web surfing difficulties.
Proceedings of the 2009 …, 2009
In this research, we propose a methodology for evaluating web accessibility with respect to disabled users, especially the visionimpaired and the hearing-impaired. Two stages are involved in our approach. In the first stage, we adopt barriers proposed by the Barrier Walkthrough method to classify possible barriers for each group of users on a web page. In addition, this method proposes checkpoints of WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) as barrier causes. All barriers found at this stage would be transformed into the relevant checkpoints. In the second stage, the severity of barriers is assessed by analyzing violated checkpoints. Our formula will also calculate accessibility value from the violated checkpoints. The result of our approach can identify whether the evaluated web pages are suitable for different groups of the disabled.
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