The report explored websites in five sectors-travel, retail, banking, government and mediain 20 countries, for a total of 100 sitesusing The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 1.0 (WCAG 1.0) to measure accessibility. Only three websites were accessible-Tony Blair’s website, the Spanish government site, and the German Chancellor’s site were the only three to conform to the most basic standards. Here’s where websites fail:
93% failed to provide adequate text descriptions for graphics
73% relied on JavaScript for important functionality
78% used colors with poor contrast, causing issues for those with color blindness
98% did not follow industry web standards for programming code
97% did not allow people to alter or resize pages
89% offered poor page navigation
87% used pop-ups causing problems for those using screen magnification software
The report was done by the online consulting firm Nomensa for the UN. More info here.
This is important stuff, but I have to ask why the report in the BBC (linked above) didn’t link to the three websites they found to be accessible? How hard is that? Or am I just too demanding?
Michael Stoner Co-Founder and Co-Owner Was I born a skeptic or did I become one as I watched the hypestorm gather during the dotcom years, recede, and congeal once more as we come to terms with our online, social, mobile world? Whatever. I'm not much interested in cutting edge but what actually works for real people in the real world. Does that make me a bad person?