Municipal web sites accessibility and usability for blind users: preliminary results from a pilot study

• Published in: Universal access in the information society Vol. 13; no. 3; pp. 339 - 349
• Main Authors: Pribeanu, Costin, Fogarassy-Neszly, Paul, Pătru, Aurel
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01.08.2014; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Accessibility; Barriers; Blindness; Blinds; Communication; Computer Communication Networks; Computer Science; Computers and Society; Content analysis; Design engineering; Handicapped accessibility; Information Storage and Retrieval; Information Systems Applications (incl.Internet); Internet access; IT in Business; Municipal government; Pilots; Regulations; User Interfaces and Human Computer Interaction; Web sites; Websites; Conformance review; Accessibility; Accessibility barrier; Municipal web sites; Usability inspection
• ISSN: 1615-5289; 1615-5297
• DOI: 10.1007/s10209-013-0315-2

Despite the existing regulations and standards at national and international level, web content is still difficult to use, if not completely unusable, for visually impaired people. This paper presents the evaluation results for three municipal web sites. A combined method, based on conformance review and expert review, was employed. Overall, the results reveal a low conformance to WCAG2 and many accessibility and usability problems. The content is not properly structured, and this reduces usability even for sighted user. The analysis of the evaluation data suggests that many accessibility barriers could be avoided by adopting a user-centered approach during web design.