Large Scale Web Accessibility Evaluation

Dr. Barry McMullin
Research Institute for Networks and
Communications Engineering (RINCE)
Dublin City University

WAI-EO Web Accessibility Evaluation Exchange
Dublin, 4 September 2003
[Presentation also available in PDF Format.]

---

Contents

• Overview
• Large Scale Surveying: What?
• Large Scale Surveying: Why?
• Large Scale Surveying: How?
• Key Results
• Pervasive Defects (Priority 1 or 2)
• Major Caveats
• Research Directions
• Thanks...
• Links
• Copyright

---

Overview

• Large Scale WCAG Surveying: What? Why? How?
• Key Results
• Pervasive Defects
• Major Caveats
• Research Directions
• Thanks...

Large Scale Surveying: What?

• Geographical region/country?
• Service sector?
• Large (?) number of "sites".
• Cheap 'n nasty per site.

Large Scale Surveying: Why?

• Publicity/Awareness
• Public Policy (including legislation)
• Education and Training
• RTD (ATAG...)

Large Scale Surveying: How?

• Automated (severe limitation!)
  • Capture: pavuk
  • Assessment: bobby
  • XML Reports
  • Database postgresql

Key Results

• 100% failed WCAG-AA.
• At least 94% failed WCAG-A.
• At least 90% failed generic HTML standards.

(...no surprises there then!)

Pervasive Defects (Priority 1 or 2)

• Rigid display coding (98.7%).
• Missing ALT (90.6%).
• Defective HTML (89.9%).
• Poor link text (76.7%).
• Inaccessible forms (69.8%).
• Device restrictions (69.2%).
• HTML frames (34.0%).

Major Caveats

• Sampling.
• False Negatives.
• False Positives.
• Interactive sites?
• Adaptive sites?
• But: Comparative studies may be fruitful(?).

Research Directions

• Different jurisdictions? (.uk, .fr, .de ...)
• Different sectors? (public/private/non-profit ...)
• Track changes in time? Automate?
• Improve/refine tests? WCAG 2.0?
• Relevance for large scale individual sites?

Thanks...

• John Kelly, Head of Business Banking, AIB PLC.
• Research students: Esmond Walshe and Carmen Marincu.
• RINCE, HEA.

Links

• eAccess Lab
• Shortform Paper
• Detailed Technical Report
• Presentation authored with FoilTeX

Copyright

This work is copyright ©2003 by Barry McMullin.

Permission is hereby granted to private individuals to access, copy and distribute this work, for purposes of private study only, provided that the distribution is complete and unmodified, is accompanied by this copyright notice, and that no charges are levied. The work may not be accessed or copied, in whole or in part, for commercial purposes, except with the prior written permission of the author.

All other rights reserved.