Why aren't more websites accessible?
Im new to academic research and to this group, so forgive me if Im not following conventions. I'm in the process of submitting a master's level grant application to examine why more websites, specifically Canadian, are not made accessible for the visually impaired. While I believe the perceived cost and effort to make websites accessible is a significant reason, I was hoping to find research into other factors. If anyone knows of any research in this area - or in ascertaining the degree of inaccessibility - I would greatly appreciate any tips, links or advice. Thank you, Glen Farrelly Student, Royal Roads University / Web Producer Glen.farrelly@yahoo.com --------------------------------- Be smarter than spam. See how smart SpamGuard is at giving junk email the boot with the All-new Yahoo! Mail
This might be helpful: Schneider, S. J., Frechtling, J., Edgar, T., Brawley, B., & Goldstein, E. (2001). Evaluating a federal health-related web site: A multimethod perspective on Medicare.gov. In R. E. Rice & J. E. Katz (Eds.), The Internet and health communication (pp. 167-187). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. This specifically mentions accessibility issues as part of federal evaluation guidelines for federal websites. ======================================================= Ronald E. Rice Arthur N. Rupe Chair in the Social Effects of Mass Communication Co-Director, Carsey-Wolf Center for Film, Television, and New Media President of the International Communication Association 2006-2007 Dept. of Communication, 4840 Ellison Hall University of California Santa Barbara, CA 93106-4020 Ph: 805-893-8696; Fax: 805-893-7102 rrice@comm.ucsb.edu http://www.comm.ucsb.edu/rice_flash.htm http://www.cftnm.ucsb.edu/ ----- Original Message ----- From: "Glen E. Farrelly" <glensleeo@yahoo.com> To: <air-l@listserv.aoir.org> Sent: Tuesday, November 27, 2007 11:16 PM Subject: [Air-L] Why aren't more websites accessible? I'm new to academic research and to this group, so forgive me if I'm not following conventions. I'm in the process of submitting a master's level grant application to examine why more websites, specifically Canadian, are not made accessible for the visually impaired. While I believe the perceived cost and effort to make websites accessible is a significant reason, I was hoping to find research into other factors. If anyone knows of any research in this area - or in ascertaining the degree of inaccessibility - I would greatly appreciate any tips, links or advice. Thank you, Glen Farrelly Student, Royal Roads University / Web Producer Glen.farrelly@yahoo.com --------------------------------- Be smarter than spam. See how smart SpamGuard is at giving junk email the boot with the All-new Yahoo! Mail _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
Glen you might find Trulock's 2005 survey of the accessibility of websites in Ireland useful. It was a follow on to McMullin's study in 2002. She goes into lots of details about her method for ascertaining the degree of inaccessibility. * Trulock, V. "A Comparative Investigation of Accessibility Levels of Irish Websites", 2005 Short version: http://www.iia.ie/resources/download/32/ Full MSc: http://www.ilikecake.net/accessibility/ accessibilityinvestigation_3.htm * McMullin, B. "WARP: Web Accessibility Reporting Project Ireland 2002 Baseline Study", 2002 Both these studies got, and continue to get, a lot of attention from the Irish web development community. I suspect they helped raise local awareness of designing for accessibility. - Mike On 28 Nov 2007, at 07:16, Glen E. Farrelly wrote:
While I believe the perceived cost and effort to make websites accessible is a significant reason, I was hoping to find research into other factors. If anyone knows of any research in this area - or in ascertaining the degree of inaccessibility - I would greatly appreciate any tips, links or advice.
-- Mike Bennett PhD Candidate Imaging, Visualisation and Graphics Lab Systems Research Group, University College Dublin, Ireland - email: mike.bennett@ucd.ie - blog: http://www.user-designer.com - web: http://www.stressbunny.com/mike
Check out: Goggin, G., & Newell, C. 2003. Digital disability: The social contruction of disability in new media. Lanham, MA: Rowman & Littlefield. If someone hasn't mentioned it already. Gerard Goggin has done significant research in this area. Cheers, Denise Denise N. Rall, PhD Southern Cross University, Lismore NSW 2480 AUSTRALIA Tues: Room T2.17, +61 (0)2 6620 3577 Mobile 0438 233 344 http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/esm/staff/pages/drall/ Virtual member, Cybermetrics Group, University of Wolverhampton, UK http://cybermetrics.wlv.ac.uk/index.html Make the switch to the world's best email. Get the new Yahoo!7 Mail now. www.yahoo7.com.au/worldsbestemail
Hello Glen An important subject that needs much more work doing on it so good luck with it. You might like to have a look at the blog for a project I'm currently working on which is trying to make online courses more accessible for disabled students. In relation to your question about why websites are not made accessible generally, I am familiar only with the literature on higher education. Some of this is included in the literature review that you will find on the blog and the research suggests that academics are not taking accessibility on board due to a combination of factors which include: lack of awareness; lack of time to address the issue; like of expertise; assuming it is the disabilities support team responsibility and so on. See http://coursesforall.wordpress.com/ I will be very interested to hear more about the commercial/industrial perspectives in due course. Best Wishes Sue This text was dictated using Speech Recognition software. Apologies for any mistakes left uncorrected. -----Original Message----- From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Glen E. Farrelly Sent: Wednesday, 28 November 2007 07:17 To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Subject: [Air-L] Why aren't more websites accessible? I’m new to academic research and to this group, so forgive me if I’m not following conventions. I'm in the process of submitting a master's level grant application to examine why more websites, specifically Canadian, are not made accessible for the visually impaired. While I believe the perceived cost and effort to make websites accessible is a significant reason, I was hoping to find research into other factors. If anyone knows of any research in this area - or in ascertaining the degree of inaccessibility - I would greatly appreciate any tips, links or advice. Thank you, Glen Farrelly Student, Royal Roads University / Web Producer Glen.farrelly@yahoo.com --------------------------------- Be smarter than spam. See how smart SpamGuard is at giving junk email the boot with the All-new Yahoo! Mail _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/ No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.503 / Virus Database: 269.16.8/1153 - Release Date: 26/11/2007 21:08 No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.503 / Virus Database: 269.16.17/1178 - Release Date: 08/12/2007 11:59
participants (5)
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Denise N. Rall -
Glen E. Farrelly -
Mike Bennett -
Ronald E. Rice -
Sue Cranmer