Accessibility and WCAG 2.0

Digital Accessibility is an inclusive best practice that formalizes the development coding standards. The Accessibility Compliance that are required to satisfy varies by countries, however Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) serve as a core guide that covers the Accessibility requirements for people with different kinds of disabilities accessing the web. The WCAG Accessibility requirements are subjective based on the user experience and the assistive technologies being used along with the wide range of scenarios covered. Given various focus areas on web components as part of WCAG standards, this short article covers the best practices for creating Accessible Hyperlinks

Web portals are being considered as excellent means for conducting teaching and learning activities electronically. The number of online services such as course enrollment, tutoring through online course materials, evaluation and even certification through web portals is increasing day by day. However, the effectiveness of an educational web portal depends on its accessibility to a wide range of students irrespective of their age, and physical abilities. Accessibility of web portals largely depends on their user-friendliness in terms of design, contents, assistive features, and online support. In this paper, we have critically analyzed the web portals of thirty Indian Universities of different categories based on the WCAG 2.0 guidelines. The purpose of this study is to point out the deficiencies that are commonly observed in web portals and help web designers to remove such deficiencies from the academic web portals with a view to enhance their accessibility.

Resumen: El presente artículo presenta la construcción del Índice de Accesibilidad para México MAI, el cual está orientado a medir los niveles de implementación de la WCAG 2.0 en los cibermedios mexicanos. Para conseguir este objetivo se evalúa el número de errores reportados por la herramienta TAW de 1531 cibermedios mexicanos. El MAI es construido utilizando AHP como método de ponderación, LST como método de normalización y la agregación geométrica. Se destaca el alto nivel de cumplimiento de la norma WCAG 2.0 lo que arroja un MAI promedio de 94.5%. Este alto rendimiento es impulsado por los resultados sobresalientes en los principios de operabilidad y comprensión. Además, se encontró que el principio de robustez es el que presenta menores niveles de cumplimiento. Se destaca a www.contrasena.com.mx como el cibermedio con el mejor desempeño a la luz de los lineamientos. Palabras clave: Accesibilidad web; TAW; cibermedios; periodismo digital; WCAG 2.0. Abstract: This article presents the construction of the Mexican Accessibility Index MAI, which is aimed to measure the levels of implementation of WCAG 2.0 standard in Mexican cybermedia. To achieve this, the number of errors reported by the TAW tool of 1531 Mexican cybermedia is evaluated. The MAI is constructed using AHP as a weighting method, LST as a normalization method and finally geometric aggregation. The high level of compliance with the WCAG 2.0 standard stands out, showing an average MAI of 94.5%. This high performance is driven by outstanding results in the principles of operability and comprehension. In addition, it was found that lowest levels of compliance are related to the principle of robustness. It highlights www.contrasena.com.mx as the cybermedia with the best performance in light of the guidelines.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate and identify the status of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) conformance levels (A, AA, AAA) and accessibility status in terms of Severity (Error, Warning and Review) and Responsibility (Editor, Webmaster and Developer) of Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) Library websites based on Siteimprove Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform.

Design/methodology/approach – The library websites of IITs were tested using Siteimprove web-tool to gather details pertaining to W3C’s WCAG 2.1 standards. The data thus obtained were then visualized using spreadsheet software for greater insight. A partial correlation test was also done to assess the relationship between the three conformance levels.

Findings – The study could identify significant accessibility-related limitations of the IIT library websites concerning the three WCAG 2.1 conformance levels A (max IIT Bombay), AA (max IIT Dhanbad (ISM)) and AAA (max IIT Gandhinagar and IIT Varanasi (BHU)), Severity and Responsibility. A positive linear relationship exists amongst these conformance levels. The mean value of conformance levels were found to be 18.3 (A), 2.2 (AA) and 3.1 (AAA); Severity scores were found to be 14.4 (Error), 3.9 (Warning) and 5.2 (Review); and Responsibility scores were found to be 6 (Editor), 9.3 (Webmaster) and 8.3 (Developer), respectively.

Practical implications – The study highlights the comparative picture of accessibility issues and conformance levels of the IITs’ library website homepage with the help of results derived/based on Siteimprove Accessibility Checker. The findings of the study reveal that though the library website of IITs’ in India possess a well-designed and easily navigable website homepage as far as their accessibility for VIPs is concerned, there are several issues that are still to be resolved.

Social implications – World Intellectual Property Organization’s (WIPO) Marrakesh VIP Treaty (MVT) and the W3C’s WCAG cater to the requirements and rights of the persons with vision-related disability of accessing information and knowledge building a steeper and deeper knowledge divide. Identifying and rectifying the shortcomings in the library websites will bridge the accessibility-divide and make the society more inclusive.

Originality/value – No previous study could be identified evaluating the accessibility issues of the library website of Indian IITs focussed on vision-disabled persons using Siteimprove. The methodology and approach of this paper have value in terms of reusability and reproducibility facilitating future studies.