Web accessibility guidelines: A lesson from the evolving Web

Submitted by mlb78 on Fri, 09/16/2016 - 17:24
TitleWeb accessibility guidelines: A lesson from the evolving Web
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication2012
AuthorsHarper, Simon, and Chen, Alex Q.
JournalWorld Wide Web
Volume15
Issue1
Pagination61-88
ISBN Number1128001101
Keywordsvisual disability, Web accessibility
AbstractThe World Wide Web (Web) is in constant evolutionary change. This evolution occurs along many fronts and is led by infrastructure developers, Web designers, technologists, and users. These multiple stake-holders ensure that the Web is a heterogeneous entity, not just in the nature of the content, but in the technology and agents used to deliver and render that content. It is precisely this heterogeneity which gives the Web its strength and its weakness. A weakness in technology adoption leading to an increasing disconnect between the actual user experience and the expected experience of the technology stakeholders. We are interested in the human factors surrounding the evolution of the Web interface; and believe that the wait is always too long for new accessibility recommendations, guidelines, and technology to be adopted. In this case, we describe a ten-year longitudinal study comprising approximately 6,000 home pages. From this study we conclude that as a 'rule-of-thumb' mainstream technology is adopted at about 15% within the first three years, incremental version releases are adopted at about 10% within the first three years. However, sites which are most popular often exhibit enhanced adoption rates of between 10 and 15% over the same period. In addition, we see that accessibility guidelines are mostly ignored with only a 10% adoption rate after more than ten years. From this we infer that, for maximum accessibility adoption, guidelines might be supported and reflected in mainstream specifications instead of remaining only as a separate document.
NotesWorld Wide Web is considerably heterogenous and unpredicatable, thus, this paper is interested in exploring the human factors that influence the development of the Web. It mainly argues that the accessibility guidelines and recommendations are adopted at a considerably lower rate than mainstream Web recommendations and technologies. It presents a ten-year longitudinal study comprising of 6,000 homepages. The results comprised of Core, De-Facto and Guidelines sections, together showing the evolution of the Web in the ten years.
DOI10.1007/s11280-011-0130-8