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Global Accessibility Audit Results

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globe.jpgA recent study conducted by Nomensa on behalf of the United Nations confirmed that many web sites around the world are beyond the reach of disabled persons. The report, published on 5th December 2006, also concluded that such sites could easily be improved to meet basic web accessibility levels.

Using a combination of manual and automated testing against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), the study looked at 100 popular sites over 5 different sectors in 20 countries and found that 97 of the 100 sites tested failed to meet minimum web accessibility levels. Performance across the different sectors varied, with central government, retail and banking offering the strongest accessibility performances across all countries.

The three sites that did meet basic accessibility criteria were those of:

Key issues identified were:

  • 98% did not follow industry web standards for the programming code, providing poor foundations for web accessibility;
  • 97% used fixed units of measurement, preventing people from altering the size of text or comfortably resizing the page so that content can be easily scaled;
  • 93% did not provide adequate text descriptions for graphical content, causing problems for visually impaired people;
  • 89% failed to use the correct technique for conveying document structure through the use of headings, making page navigation awkward for many visually impaired people;
  • 87% caused pop-up windows to appear without warning the user, causing disorientation problems for people using screen magnification software.
  • 78% used foreground and background colour combinations with poor contrast, making it difficult for people with mild visual conditions, such as colour blindness, to read information;
  • 73% relied on JavaScript for important functionality, making it impossible for an estimated 10% of Internet users using the Internet to access key information;

The 20 countries audited were:

  • Argentina
  • Australia
  • Brazil
  • Canada
  • Chile
  • China
  • France
  • Germany
  • India
  • Japan
  • Kenya
  • Mexico
  • Morocco
  • Russia
  • Singapore
  • South Africa
  • Spain
  • United Arab Emirates
  • United Kingdom
  • United States of America

Nomensa’s Leonie Watson told a news conference at U.N. headquarters:

Whilst many sites have taken steps toward wider accessibility, they need to do more to become fully available to people who cannot use a computer mouse, have low-vision disabilities or are blind.

A heavy reliance on JavaScript makes it impossible for about 10 percent of Internet users to access key information because they lack the needed software to do so.

Although the sample size for this study was far smaller than the 2004 UK survey undertaken by the DRC, it does suggest that, internationally, web accessibility is at least as bad - if not worse - than in the UK.

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