· 2012
Guidelines are only half of the story
- 322citations
- 2012year
Short summary
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG 2.0) cover only 50.4% of problems encountered by 32 blind users across 16 websites, with implemented techniques failing to solve 16.7% of covered issues.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Key points
- WCAG 2.0 Success Criteria covered only 50.4% of problems faced by 32 blind web users.
- 1383 user problems were identified across 16 different websites.
- Implemented WCAG 2.0 techniques failed to solve the intended problems in 16.7% of instances.
- Current guideline implementation may not effectively reduce accessibility barriers for users with disabilities.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
This paper describes an empirical study of the problems encountered by 32 blind users on the Web. Task-based user evaluations were undertaken on 16 websites, yielding 1383 instances of user problems. The results showed that only 50.4% of the problems encountered by users were covered by Success Criteria in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG 2.0). For user problems that were covered by WCAG 2.0, 16.7% of websites implemented techniques recommended in WCAG 2.0 but the techniques did not solve the problems. These results show that few developers are implementing the current version of WCAG, and even when the guidelines are implemented on websites there is little indication that people with disabilities will encounter fewer problems. The paper closes by discussing the implications of this study for future research and practice. In particular, it discusses the need to move away from a problem-based approach towards a design principle approach for web accessibility.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source., 2012 · DOI ↗
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Field: Human Factors and Ergonomics
Human Factors and ErgonomicsSocial Sciences