| Title | A longitudinal study of state government homepage accessibility in Maryland and the role of web page templates for improving accessibility |
| Publication Type | Journal Article |
| Year of Publication | 2013 |
| Authors | Lazar, Jonathan, Wentz, Brian, Almalhem, Abdulelah, Catinella, Alexander, Antonescu, Catalin, Aynbinder, Yeveniy, Bands, Michael, Bastress, Edward, Chan, Brandon, Chelden, Brian, Feustel, Darin, Gautam, Nabin, Gregg, Whitney, Heppding, Michael, Householder, Cory, Libby, Alex, Melton, Corey, Olgren, Jack, Palestino, Loren, Ricks, Morgan, Rinebold, Scott, and Seidel, Matthew |
| Journal | Government Information Quarterly |
| Volume | 30 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pagination | 289-299 |
| Keywords | disability, law, Policy, Section508, Web accessibility |
| Abstract | It is well documented that government agencies, at all levels, continue to have problems ensuring that government web sites follow laws related to web accessibility for people with disabilities. Although there are a number of published studies on government web accessibility that are point-in-time, there are no published studies consisting of a longitudinal analysis of state-level government web site accessibility. This paper contributes to the research literature in three ways: (1) an accessibility inspection of 25 Maryland state government homepages in 2012 which involved 150 human inspections of web pages, (2) a comparison of the results from 2012 to a similar accessibility evaluation in 2009, and (3) a discussion of the role of a web page template, which was introduced in Maryland state government shortly after the 2009 evaluation. The data from this longitudinal evaluation leads to the conclusion that web page templates do tend to result in more accessible sites within state government. ?? 2013 Elsevier Inc.. |
| Notes | This study in the year 2012 took 15 Maryland government homepages evaluated in spring 2009 and reviewed them. In addition, it evaluated 10 additional web pages randomly selected from the "find an agency" pull-down menu. A number of experts were invited to use two screen readers, namely the JAWS and the VoiceOver, to evaluate these homepages. Results showed that most pages had violated Maryland IT Non-Visual Access Guidelines. Compared with 2009, the 2012 homepages showed a slight improvement on accessibility. |
| URL | http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2013.03.003 |
| DOI | 10.1016/j.giq.2013.03.003 |
