Beyond Specifications: Towards a Practical Methodology for Evaluating Web Accessibility

Panayiotis Koutsabasis, Evangelos Vlachogiannis, and Jenny S. Darzentas

Journal of Usability Studies, Volume 5, Issue 4, August 2010, pp. 157 - 171

Abstract

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.

Practitioner’s Take Away

The following are the key points of this paper:

• Web accessibility concerns every user, designer, and business owner. There are many ethical, business, user, and technical arguments for designing for web accessibility.
• Current web accessibility tools and specifications are technically oriented and need expert knowledge to be understood and applied.
• Despite the work on web accessibility, most web sites are still inaccessible. For example (described in this paper) six out of ten e-publishing homepages pose major accessibility problems and only two out of ten are accessible.
• Typical web accessibility problems found include the loss of (a) information organisation, (b) navigation, (c) visibility, and (d) user control, when users access web sites in constrained contexts (e.g., with an oral browser or in a keyboard only situation).
• The paper proposes a practical methodology reaching and maintaining web accessibility, which includes (a) identification of user requirements and set up of accessibility goals, (b) web accessibility evaluation and redesign process, and (c) establishment and follow-up of accessibility policy. This three step approach will help to achieve the following:
• Identify particular user requirements when designing for web accessibility and conform to a level of accessibility specifications (e.g., single-A of WCAG 1.0).
• Implement a fast and practical method for regular web accessibility inspection according to your accessibility goals. This paper illustrates a method that makes use of automated tools and heuristics that can be employed in accessibility inspections.
• Understand the appropriate time and the value of user testing. User testing is important for web accessibility, but a basic level of accessibility should be there. Testing with disabled users also increases web developers’ awareness.
• Establish and follow up a web accessibility policy. This should focus on basic rules for content update of the web site that editors of the web site should follow as well as tools for checking content on the fly or in the background. This is an area for further research development and application in the field.

Article Contents

• Introduction
• Related Work
• A Simple Example of the Web Accessibility Evaluation Process
• Method
• Steps Towards a Practical Methodology for Web Accessibility Evaluation and Maintenance
• Summary and Conclusions
• References

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Beyond Specifications: Towards a Practical Methodology for Evaluating Web Accessibility