Guidelines, icons and marketable skills: an accessibility evaluation of 100 web development company homepages

Authors:
Teresa D. Gilbertson;Colin H. C. Machin
Affiliations:
Loughborough University, Leicestershire, UK;Loughborough University, Leicestershire, UK
Venue:
Proceedings of the International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility
Year:
2012

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Abstract

Accessible websites are increasingly desired by clients with many web developers listing accessibility as a skill offered by their companies. An accessibility and validation study of 100 UK web development company homepages found that, while the skill set is gaining popularity in terms of visibility, the mention of accessibility on a developer website has no impact in terms of the actual accessibility of the homepage. The presence of validation and conformance icons for XHTML, CSS, WCAG 1.0 and 2.0 also does not necessarily reflect the current state of the site, which may have changed multiple times since the validation occurred. Accessibility errors are still common, with missing alt text and labels and poor keyboard accessibility in terms of keyboard traps as well as omission of "lang" attributes and reused id attribute values listed among the most frequent barriers encountered.