skip to main content
10.1145/2207016.2207028acmotherconferencesArticle/Chapter ViewAbstractPublication Pagesw4aConference Proceedingsconference-collections
research-article

A challenge to web accessibility metrics and guidelines: putting people and processes first

Published:16 April 2012Publication History

ABSTRACT

This paper argues that web accessibility is not an intrinsic characteristic of a digital resource but is determined by complex political, social and other contextual factors, as well as technical aspects which are the focus of WAI standardisation activities. It can therefore be inappropriate to develop legislation or focus on metrics only associated with properties of the resource.

The authors describe the value of standards such as BS 8878 which focus on best practices for the process of developing web products and include a user focus.

The paper concludes with a case study that illustrates how learning analytics could provide data to support the improvement of the inclusivity of learning resources, providing a broader perspective beyond the digital resource.

References

  1. British Standards International (2010). BS 8878:2010 Web Accessibility -- Code of Practice, (charged for publication available through http://www.bsi-publications.com)Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  2. Bigham, J., Ladner, R. and Borodin, Y. (2011). The design of Human-Powered Access Technology., Proceedings of the 13th international ACM SIGACCESS conference on Computers and accessibility (ASSETS '11). New York: ACM Press. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  3. Bødker, S. (2006). When second wave HCI meets third wave challenges. In Proceedings of the 4th Nordic conference on Human-computer interaction: changing roles. pp.1--8. Oslo, Norway. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  4. Cooper, M. (2011). Web accessibility metrics-- "What are they for then?", http://martyncooper.wordpress.com/2011/12/06/web-accessibility-metrics/Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  5. Kelly B., Sloan D., Phipps L., Petrie H. and Hamilton F. (2005). Forcing standardization or accommodating diversity? A framework for applying the WCAG in the real world. Proceedings of the 2005 International Cross-Disciplinary Workshop on Web Accessibility (W4A) (Chiba, Japan, 10 May 2005). New York: ACM Press. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  6. Kelly, B., Lewthwaite, S. and Sloan, D. (2010). Developing Countries; Developing Experiences: Approaches to Accessibility for the Real World. Proceedings of the 2010 International Cross-Disciplinary Workshop on Web Accessibility (W4A) (Raleigh, USA, 26-27 April 2010). New York: ACM Press. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  7. Kelly, B., Sloan, D., Brown, S., Seale, J., Petrie, H., Lauke, P and, Ball, S. (2007). Accessibility 2.0: People, Policies And Processes. Proceedings of the 2007 International Cross-Disciplinary Workshop on Web Accessibility (W4A) (Banff, Canada, 7-8 May 2007). New York: ACM Press. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  8. Law, C. M., Jacko, J. A.& Edwards, P. (2005) Programmer-focused website accessibility evaluations. Proceedings of the 7th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '05). Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  9. Lewthwaite, S. and Swan, H. (2012). Disability, Web Standards and the Majority World. In: L. Meloncon (Ed.) Rhetorical AccessAbility: At the intersection of technical communications and disability studies. Baywood Publishing.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  10. Sloan, D. R. and Kelly, B., (2011). Web Accessibility Metrics For A Post Digital World, RDWG Symposium on Website Accessibility Metrics, 5 December 2011 http://www.w3.org/WAI/RD/2011/metrics/paper10/Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  11. Takagi, H., Kawanaka, S., Kobayashi, M., Sato, D., and Asakawa, C. (2009). Collaborative web accessibility improvement: challenges and possibilities. Proceedings of the 11th international ACM SIGACCESS conference on Computers and accessibility (ASSETS '09). New York: ACM Press 195--202. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library

Index Terms

  1. A challenge to web accessibility metrics and guidelines: putting people and processes first

        Recommendations

        Comments

        Login options

        Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

        Sign in
        • Published in

          cover image ACM Other conferences
          W4A '12: Proceedings of the International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility
          April 2012
          189 pages
          ISBN:9781450310192
          DOI:10.1145/2207016

          Copyright © 2012 ACM

          Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

          Publisher

          Association for Computing Machinery

          New York, NY, United States

          Publication History

          • Published: 16 April 2012

          Permissions

          Request permissions about this article.

          Request Permissions

          Check for updates

          Qualifiers

          • research-article

          Acceptance Rates

          Overall Acceptance Rate171of371submissions,46%

        PDF Format

        View or Download as a PDF file.

        PDF

        eReader

        View online with eReader.

        eReader